Tibet, Tartary And Mongolia Ed. 2nd

TIBET, TARTARY AND MONGOLIA;

THEIR

'social and political condition,

AND

THE RELIGION OF BOODH,

AS THERE EXISTING,

^YMPIT.rO JROM TIIF, lirrORT9 OF ANCIENT AND MOI.ERN TSAVILLERR, FSPECIALLT
FROM M. HlTo's RFMlNIfSOENCES OF THE RECENT JOURNEY OF HIMSILF
AND M. OAHFT, EARABIBTE MIRRlON ARIES OF MOMOULTA.

BY

HENRY T. PRINSEP, Esq.

Scconli 'Htrliion.

LONDON;

\Vm. II. ALLEN & CO.,

7, LEADENHALL STREET.

1S5A.

l.K\^ IS AND BON, l’RIMri:.KS, 2l, IrINOll l.ANl;:, COBKUIDL.

PREFACE

TO THE SECOND EDITION.

This little volume pretends to no higher merit
than to be a faithful abstract of the informa-
tion, regarding the civil and religious Institu-
tions of Tibet, Tartary, and Mongolia, that has
been furnished by travellers, or by men who
have made the language and literature of
those countries their especial study.

It was undertaken before M. Hue’s account
of his adventurous journey through. these^ re-
gions, in company with M. Gabet, had ac-
qtiired the popularity it has since attained.
That work will now have been read, either in the
original French, or in the English translation,
by all who take an interest in matters of this
description, and by many more besides, wlio

IV

read only for entertainment and to pass the hour.
We have no wish, and if wc had the desire,- the

• • V

effort would be vain, to withdraw readers from
the perusal of these lively and instructive
volumes. If, however, wc had thought them
likely to be so soon made generally accessible to
English readers, the idea of printing and pub-
lishing a work, the half of which is an abstract
of M. Hue’s “ Souvenirs” of his journey, would
never have occurred to us. But our abstract,
with its notice of antecedent journeys into the
same regions, and its summary of the result of
recent researches into the sacred literature of the
Boodhists, appeared just as M. Hue’s work
began to excite attention in England, and has
been read along with itj finding so much
favour, that the whole of the copies originally
printed have been sold, and the book is now no
longer procurable by those who desire to read or
refer to it. This alone is reason sufficient for
reprinting the work, with such revisions and
corrections, as, on a careful re-perusal, it has

V

seemed to need. Of these, the most material
have .been suggested by the discovery, that the
Chinese itinerary, which guided these mission-
aries in their journey on return, was the iden-
tical work that had been translated into Rus-
sian by the Archimandrite Hyacinthe Bitchou-
rin, and w'as commented upon and further
illustrated by the learned Klaproth, and so re-
published in Paris in 1831. By the aid of
this work, we have been enabled to trace ac-
curately the route followed by these travellers
in the latter part of their adventurous journey,
and greatly to improve the sketch map given in
the first edition, so as to add to its value as
a geographical record.

But there is a fiu:ther reason for republish-
ing this volume at the present juncture, and
that is, that the book is a useful summary for
those to keep by them, whose profession or
whose pursuits may require them to have some
'practical acquaintance with Boodhist notions
and Boodhist institutions.

VI

The whole of India being now British, it
would seem to be the destiny of England to
be drawn, day by day, more into relation with
the races of mankind who profess that reli-
gion, and who, occupying the countries beyond
India, have hitherto made it their study to
isolate themselves from the contagion of west-
ern intelligence, and European civilization.
The war with China, in 1841-42, did much
to break down the barrier which fenced round
her social institutions; and the recent gold
discoveries in the countries washed by the
Pacific ocean, are fast contributing to estab-
lish an intercourse, that must soon revolution-
ize, and fuse into a community of intelligence
and of perceptions, the races which have for
centuries prided themselves on the strength of
their separate civilization, and on the progress
they made in arts and sciences, even in advance
of Europe, by the force of native ingenuity and
indigenous institutions. But while the ships*
and steamers of Europe, or of her Anglo-Saxon

vu

descendants, arc appropriating the Pacific, and
working out the ends of Providence in their
influence upon the Tartar races of Boodhist
faith in that quarter of the globe, the more
violent and direct action of war is at work
upon the barrier of Indo-Chinese races, which
has hitherto severed the same countries from
c-ommunion with the rest of the world from
the west and southi We are now at war
with Biu-mah, a nation of exclusively Bood-
histical institutions and faith. To what degree
the issue and results of this war will con-
tribute to forward the social revolution in
progress, it would be fruitless yet to specu-
late upon. This war, however, must add to
the interest already existing in respect to the
religion which has so widely spread amongst
these nations, and cannot fail to stimulate
enquiry into the characteristic features of its
doctrine, ritual, and institutions. That curi-
osity it is the object of this work in part to
satisfy.

Oitoher, 1H52.

TIBET, TARTARY AND MONGOLIA.

Tihp:t 5 Tartary and Mongolia were unknown to
the ancients, except as lands of foble, occupied by
wandering Scythians. Tibet was the country
whence came the Indians of the Persian court,
who ate their dead, as told by Herodotus, and as
they themselves report to have been their ancient
custom. There is, however, no record of authen-
tic trav'el into any region of the East, lying above
the Himalaya, and beyond the mountains in
which the Oxus and Jaxartes have their sources,
anterior to the journey of Father William Rubru-
quis to Karakurum, in the reign of Louis IX. of
France, and of Mangoo Khan, the grandson of
JVngeez Khan, of Tartary. This journey was
undertaken in a.d. 1253, at the time when King
Louis was in Syria, engaged in a holy war. It had

B

2

TIBET, TARTARY

its origin in an overture made, through a real or
pretended ambassador of the Khan of the Mongols,
settled between the Don and the Wolga* rivers,
who was said to have professed Christianity, and
to have held out the hope of a diversion from the
North in favour of the cause of that religion
against Islam. The Khan referred to is called by
Rubruquis, Sartach, but in the works of later
French missionaries, he is called Gayook Khan.
He was the son of Batoo, at that time great Khan
of the western tribes, and conquered territories of
the Mongols beyond the Ccispian Sea. Crossing
the Euxine to the Crimea, Rubruquis found Sar-
tach in the pastures between the Don and AV'olga,
which are now occupied by the Cossacks. By
Sartach he was sent on to Batoo, who was then
near the Wolga; and the affair of an expedition
into Syria appearing, even to him, to be beyond
his competency, the monk envoy was sent on to
the Court of Mangoo Khan, at Karakurum. He
made the journey in winter, riding relays of horses
along with a Tartar noble, and found no obstruc-
tion except from cold, fatigue, starvation and bad
roads. He remained five months with Mangoo
Khan, and was similarly sent back in the summer.
He writes in his official report of this mission,
made to King Louis, We came in two months

AND MONGOLIA.

S

and. ten days from Karakurum to Batoo, and never
saw a town nor so much as the appearance of any
house* but graves^ except one village, wherein we
did not so much as eat bread ; nor did we ever
rest in these two months and ten days, save one
day, because we could not get horses. We went
two days, and sometimes three, without taking any
other food but cosmos (Kurmis).” I'he geogra-*
phietd particulars given by Kabruquis are very
scanty, but great interest attaches to what he re-
ports of the habits and character of these Khans,
and of their courts, and likewise of the religious
condition of the Moghuls, or Mongols, in that age.
Mangoo Khan was the grandson of Jungeez Khan,
who died in the year a.d. 1227, only twenty-six
years before the date of this mission. The conquest
of China had not yet changed the character and
habits of the conquering horde, and we find both
Batoo and Mangoo to be the same simple-minded
illiterate barbarians that we still read of as occu-
pying the station of Tartar Khans, but not want-
ing in shrewdness, high-minded feeling, and even
dignity.

With respect to religion, Jungeez Khan was the
Vpostle of the most complete toleration. The
Mahommedans report that he had the subject dis-
cussed in a Mosque of Bokhara, and there laid

B 2

4

TIBET, TARTARY

do^vTi the principle, that he required only faith in
one all-powerful God, leaving all the rest to be
supplied by man’s free study and judgment. As
this was the early creed of Mohammed himself
the Moolaves looked upon him as more than half
Mohammedan. But the creed of Jungeez was
Boodhism. The very title of Jungeez Khan was
given to him by a Kotooktoo, or regenerate Boodh,
of great sanctity, after his wars with Tangoot or
Tibet, and he was too deep a politican not to use
the agency and influence of that extraordinary
priesthood to assist him in binding the Tartar,
Tibetan and Mongol races in the wonderful as-
sociation he contrived to establish amongst them,
and which subsisted for many generations after
his decease.

In the Shensi province a stone tablet was found
by the Jesuits, in the seventeenth century, record-
ing the presence of Nesiorian Christians in the
country, and their success in spreading Christian-
ity, as early as a.d. 636 ; and there are imperial
edicts in its favour of dates between that year and
A.D. 782, which are still preserved in the archives
and histories of China.

We find also from the report of Father Rubrur
quis, that Nestorian Christians abounded at the
courts and in the territories, as well of Batoo Khan,

AND MONGOLIA.

5

as qf his superior, Mangoo Khan ; that they had
great influence with many at court, esjDccially of
the wives and daughters of these and other chiefs ;
that they were allowed publicly to profess their
religion, to open chapels, and parade the cross in
public streets and market-places, dressed in ca-
nonical vestments ; and that they were especially
called on to administer medicines, and to pray for*
sick f)crsons in extremity. I'athcr Rubruquis,
himself, took part in a controversy of these Chris-
tians, held with Boodhists and Mohammedans,
in the presence of Mangoo Khan, on matters of
faith ; and one cannot read his report without won-
dering at the patience with which these simple-
minded people, and the priests and professors of
their ancient religion submitted to the ill-man-
nered arrogance and pretensions of the intrusive
Christian zealots, who, while proclaiming the mys-
teries of the Trinity, and of the Host, and of holy
water, too frequently insulted those who adhered
to the faith of their fathers, and declared publicly
their books, and those of the INIahommedans, to
be lies, and the believers vile dogs.”

Rubruquis thus reports, in a general way, of the
*Lama priesthood he found at the courts of the
Mongol Khans; and we give the extract verbatim,
because it is of importance to show that their

f)

TIBET, TARTARY

forms and habits have suffered very little change in
the six hundred years since his visit to Mongolia,
and had not their origin in any imitation of
Romish observances, he being the first priest of
that church who is known to have entered the
country.

All their priests had their heads shaven cpiite
over, and they arc clad in saffron coloured gar-
ments. Being once shaven, they lead an unmarried
life from that time forward, and they live a hundred
or two hundred of them together in one cloister.
Upon the days when they enter into these temples,
they place two long forms therein, and so sitting
upon the said forms, like singing men in a choir,
one half of them directly over against the other,
they have certain books in their hands, which
sometimes they lay down upon the forms ; and
their heads are bare as long as they remain in the
temple ; and then they read softly to themselves,
not uttering any voice at all. On my coming in
among them, at the time of their superstitious de-
votions, and finding them all sitting mute in a
manner, I attempted several ways to provoke
them to speech, yet could not by any means pos-
sibly. They have with them also, whithersoever
they go, a certain string, with a hundred or two
hundred nutshells thereupon, much like our beads.

AND MONGOLIA.

7

wliich we carry about with us, and they do always
mutter these words,* ^ Om mani hactavi (pm
mani padme horn) God, thou knowest,’ as one of
them expounded it to me. And so often do
they expect a reward at God’s hands as they pro-
nounce these words in remembrance of God.”
Again : “ I made a visit to their idol temple, and
found certain priests sitting in the outward portico, ‘
and those which I saw seemed by their shaven
beards as if they had been our countrymen, d'hey
wore certain ornaments upon their heads like
mitres made of paper. The priests of the Jugures
( Qy { Chakars) use those ornaments wherever
they go. They wear always their saffron-coloured
jackets, which are very straight-laced, or buttoned
from the bosom downwards, after the French
fashion, and they have a cloak upon their left
shoulder, descending under their right arm, like
a deacon carrying a collector’s box in time of
Lent.”

This description corresponds exactly with what
one sees at this day in any Boodhist temple of
Mongolia, China, Burma, or Siam. Pythagorean

• * The proper translation of this universal prayer of Boodhist 3

IS “ Oh the jewel in the Lotus, Amen,” meaning, “ Oh Boodh,
who have been absorbed and incorporated in the divine essence
ike the jewel-shaped mark in the Lotus flower.”

8

TIBET, TARTARY

silence and abstraction is there the universal rule.
The ceremonies and public services on particular
occasions, and especially those of the Tibetan mo-
nastic establishments, arc of a different character,
as will hereafter be noticed*

The only further thing to be gathered from Ru-
bruquis is, that the reply of Mangoo Khan to the
letter of King Louis, is stated to have been written
in the Mongolian language, but in the character
of the J ugurcs or Chakars, which had been intro-
duced by Nestorian Christians, and was derived
from the Syrian, but written in lines down the
page, commencing from the left. Mongolian is
so written at the present day. We wonder if there
is any trace of this letter among the archives of
France ! There are records of older times than
this still subsisting in England, and the letter
which led to the mission of father Rubruquis is
said to be extant.

The next account of these regions obtained by
Europe was furnished through the relation of the
travels of Marco Polo. Two noblemen of the Ve-
netian family of Polo had relations of commerce
and friendship with the Tartar chiefs of the
northem shores of the Euxine, at the very period,
of the journey of Rubruquis, above noticed. By
some vicissitudes they were led to Bokhara, at the

AND MONGOLIA,

9

time when Alan Khan, better known by the naine
of Hulakoo, sent an ambassador to Knblai Khan,
whom he acknowledged as the head of the entire
Tartar and Mongol races. By that ambassador
the Venetians were invited to miike the journey
in company. It occupied an entire year, but we
have no record of the line of route followed from
Bokhara. Kublai Khan received them well, and*
having kept them some time at his court, sent
them back with letters and a message to the Pope,
inviting him to open' communications with him.
Some troubles and changes of the papacy prevented
a prompt acknowledgment of this overture ; but
at last, in a. d. 1269, as nearly as can be ascer-
tained, the two Polos, Nicolo and Maffei, taking
with them Marco, the young son of the former,
set out on their return, along with a priest, who
soon left them, delivering the Pope’s letters into
their hands. Starting from Acre, on the coast of
Syria, the Polos were three years and a half upon
this journey. Upon their arrival at Pekin, wliich
they call Cambala, which is the Tartar niime
Khanbaliq, young Marco was taken immediately
into favour, and was for twenty-six years after-
wards a nobleman of the great Khan’s court, em-
ployed in several missions, and other high offices
of state. He came away at last, in a. d. 1295, in

10

TIBET, TARTARY

charge of a princess who was to be married to the
Tartar sovereign of Persia.

The information obtained in this long sojourn
ill China and Tartary was committed to writing
by Marco Polo, or from his dictation, during a
captivity he suffered at Genoa, after his return.
It was thus given only from memory, and is often
vague. But it has been confirmed in most respects
by subsequent travellers. The route followed, on
the Polos’ second journey into China, was up the
Oxus, to its sources, through Budukhshan ; whence
crossing the Pamir table-land to Kotun, they went
across the Hamil or Shamil desert, to Cambala
(Khanbaliq), or Pekin. The return was by sea to
Singapore, and round Ceylon, to the Persian gulf.
Of Tibet and Mongolia, Marco Polo says little.
His einjiloyments seem to have carried him chiefly
into the provinces of China Proper, and other south-
ern countries, the magnitude and population of
the cities of which, he details with exaggeration.
He dwells also with animation upon the magnifi-
cence of the court of Kublai Khan ; showing a
strange change of habit between him and his pre-
decessor, Mangoo Khan, as described only a few
years before by Rubruquis. We find, however, in
Marco Polo, continued evidence of the extreme
toleration allowed by this race of emperors to all
religions, and of the impartiality with which ho-

AND MONGOLIA.

11

nours were granted to men of every faith. The
general who conquered southern China, for in-
stance, is stated to have been a Nestorian Christian,
and to have built a church at Nankin for those of
his own faith. Marco Polo was himself in high
favour, though a Roman Catholic ; and Mahom-
mcdans also were numerous, and freely employed.
It is, indeed, stated to have been the custom of the
emperor to send offerings on his birthday to the
shrines, and presents to the priests of all religions,
on the same principle, it would seem, as was re-
cognised by the Romans when they erected their
temple to the gods of lesser nations, lliis spirit
of general toleration did not orginate with the
Mongol emperors. We learn from the MahorniiKi-
dan travellers who visited China as early as a.d. 850,
that it then prevailed ; and that, when Canton was
taken and sacked in a.d. 877, by a rebel army, as
many as 120,000 Mahommedans, Jews, Christians,
and Parsees perished in the sack. This shows that
the policy of China in those days allowed the free
resort and residence of men of all r(3ligions. The
same travellers, in common with Rubruquis, relate
conferences had, with the emperor, or with men in
• power, on subjects of faith, affording evidence of a
spirit of free inquiry into such matters quite con-
sonant with the known princij^le of Roodhism^
which recognises the pursuit of truth by abstrac-

1S5

TIBET, TARTARY

tion, and by the free exercise of the powers of the
human mind, as the first duty, and only road to
perfection. These Mahommedans came to China
by sea, and did not penetrate into Tibet or Tartary,
which have ever been the head quarters of the re-
ligion of Boodh, but they knew of that religion
having been derived from India, of its being very
ancient, and of its being based on a belief in the
transmigration of souls, combined with image
worship.

The earliest travels into Tibet Proper which have
been transmitted to us, are those of the Jesuit
fathers, Grueber and Dorville, who returned from
China by that route in a.d. 1661 , just four hun-
dred years after Marco Polo’s journey westward.
They were the first Christians of Europe who are
known to have penetrated into the populous parts
of Tibet ; for Marco Polo’s journey was, as we have
stated, to the north-west, by the sources of the
Oxus.* Father Grueber v/as much struck Avith

* Benedict Ooez, a Portuguese monk, went from Lahore hy
Kabool, to Kasbghur, and across the sandy desert, into China,
where he died in a.u. 1607 , but his route also was far north of
Tibet. Ainother Jesuit, Anthony Andrada, passed through Ku-
maon to the Manoosa-Rahwa lake, and thence went on to Rudak
on the western confines of Tibet. His journey was made in 1624<,
and is discredited by commentators and geographers, because of
his mentioning this lake as the source of the Ganges and Indus,
instead of the Sutlej. There is no doubt, however, that the voy-
age is genuine, though we have no details of it.

AND MONGOLIA.

13

the extraordinary similitude he found, as well in
the doctrine, as in the ritujils, of the Boodhists of
Lassa.to those of his owti Romish faith. He noticed
first, that the dress of Lamas corresponded with
that handed doAvn to us in ancient paintings, as
the dress of the Apostles. 2nd. That the disci-
pline of the monasteries, and of the difFcn*cnt orders
of Lamas or priests, bore the same resemblance to
that of the Romish church. 3rd. That the* notion
of an incarnation Avas common to both, so also the
belief in paradise and ‘purgatory. 4th. He re-
marked that they made suffrages, alms, prayers,
and sacrifices for the dead, like the Roman Catho-
lics. 5th. That they had coiiAxnts, filled Avith
monks and friars, to the number of 30,000, near
Lassa, AV'lio all made the three vows of poA^erty,
obedience, and chastity, like Roman monks, bf*-
sides other vows. And 6th, that they had con-
fessors, licensed by the superior Lamas, or
bishops ; and so empoAvered to receive confessions,
and to impose penances, and give absolution.
Besides all this, there was found the practice of
using holy Avatcir, of singing serAUce in alternation,
of praying for the dead, and a perfect similarity in
4:he costumes of the great and superior Lamas to
those of the different orders of the Romish hierarchy
These early missionaries, further, were led to con-

14

TIBET, T ART ARY

elude, from what they saw and heard, that the an-
cient books of the Lamas contained traces of the
Christian religion, which must, they thought;^ have
been preached in Tibet in the time of the Apostles.
We reserve the further discussion of this question,
until we have given the more complete and accu-
rate information afforded by recent travellers, who
followed very nearly the same route with these
missionaries. The sources of our geographical in-
formation deserve the first notice.

The map of Tibet, which is given in connection
with that of China, was not framed from actual
surveys made by the Jesuits employed by the
Emperor Kanghi to prepare the latter. They de-
puted some Lamas, to whom they had imparted
the rudiments of the science of surveying, and from
their information, filled in that portion. In this
state it was jiublishcd by Du Halde, in the begin-
ning of the eighteenth century, and is to this day
all we have on the subject. The map, therefore,
is on no account to be depended uiion. On the
other hand, the few Europeans who have penetrated
into Tibet, with exception to Captain Turner,
Warren Hasting’s envoy, tell us only of their dif-
ficulties and sufferings, and give very imperfect
notices of the geography of the routes they fol-
lowed. Fathers Grueber andDorville crossed China

AND MONGOLIA,

15

from Pekin, by Singanfoo to Sining, and reached
the Koko-noor valley, and thence passed into Tibet,
round tlie sources of the Kwaiig-ho, and crossing
those of the Yang-tse Kiang river. They came on
from thence to India, through the valley of N ipal
by Katmandu, and Hetounda to Patna, on the
Ganges, 'where Dorville died. Another missionary,
Pere Desideri, started from Goa in November,
1713, and passing through Dehli and Ivaslimeer
into Baltistan, arrived at Leh, or La dak, on the
25th June, 1714, and remained there for an entire
year. Prom thence, he continued his journey, in
the autumn of 1715, to Lassa, by a route of ex-
treme elevation, of 'which we have no details what-
sover ; Desideri, like the rest, only reporting his
o'wn sufferings from the intense cold. The journey
occupied from August 1715, to March 171(3; and
the 'Worst part was made in the winter, as seems
to be the case 'with all, because of the impossi-
bility of crossing the rivers and torrents at other
seasons. Desideri found the tcmj)oral sovereignty
of Lassa in the hands of a Tartar prince (a Sifiin),
who had recently conquered the country ; the
Lamas were, however, respected and reverenced,
• and directed all things spiritual.

After this, a mission of twelve Capuchins was
sent into Tibet by Pope Clement XI., at the head

lb

TIBET, TARTARY

of which was a monk named Francis Horace della
Penna. It passed through Betia in Behar, to
Bhatgaon in Nipal, and thence reached Lassa» In
1732, letters were received in Rome from this mis-
sion, after an interval of years, announcing its
favourable reception, and soliciting a reinforcement,
which was sent in 1738. In 1742, there was pub-
lished in Rome a very meagre report of the pro-
ceedings of this mission, making pretence of great
success, and of having brought even the sovereign
of the kingdom to acknowledge the truths of Chris-
tianity: but stating that he was restrained from
proclaiming his conversion by policy, and by a re-
spect for old customs. The mission, which had a
branch at Bhatgaon in Nipal, is not further heard
of, and no geographical, or other details of interest,
have ever been obtained from it ; but among the
bishops in partihus nominated by the Pope, the
title of Bishop of Tibet is still in use.

After these comes, in point of date, the authen-
tic and highly interesting narrative of Captain
Turner, who was sent in 1783 by Warren Hastings
on a special political mission to the Grand Lama of
Teeshoo Vor Djachi Loomboo. Full particulars
of this journey were published in 1785 in London,
with an accurate map of the route ; and the book
is too well known to need either citation, or any

AND MONGOLIA.

17

statement in abstract of its contents. We shall
hereafter have occasion to refer to the account it
gives, of the state of society and of religion in
Tibet. Captain Turner’s route to Djachi was from
Rungpoor in Ucngal, to Tassisiidon in Bootan, and
thence by the Chumidari pass, across the Hima-
laya. — He never went to Lassa. The same route
nearly from Rungpoor was taken by Mr. Manning,
who made the attempt to pass through Tibet into
China, but was sent back from Lassa in 1811. We
are not aware of any other Europeans having ever
penetrated from India into this interesting region ;
but the government of India has received intel-'^
ligence on several occasions from merchants of
Patna, who trade with Lassa indirectly through
Katmandoo ; and its relations with Nipal, have,
more than once, brought the governor-general into
direct communication with the Chinese officers in
Tibet.

It may be convenient to mention in this place
the nature and circumstances of these communi-
cations.

In the time of Warren Hastings, the Bootan
chiefs made an incursion into the district of Rung-
poor, and the detachment employed in driving back
the Booteas penetrated into the lower hills, and
took Pelamcotta. The Booteas then sued for

18

TIBET, TAKTAKY

peace, using the good offices of the Teeshoo Lama
for intercession, for they are Boodhists, owning
the spiritual supremacy of the Tibetan Lamas.
Favourable terms were given to them, and Delam-
cottawas restored. Themissions,first of Mr. Bogle
to Tassisudon, and afterwards of Captain Turner,
to Djachi Loomboo, had their origin in this petty
war. The British power, it is to be observed, was
not then viewed with the same suspicion as at pre-
sent, either by Tibetans or by Chinese, nor was
the authority of China so firmly established in
Tibet.

In 1792, the Goorkhas having mastered the whole
of the valley of Nipal, and of the hill country from
Sikhim to the Gogra, a party of them crossed the
Himalaya, and appeared suddenly before Djachi
Loomboo. The Lama and priests hastily evacuated
their convents, and fled to Lassa, and the place was
plundered by the Goorkhas, who retired imme-
diately with their booty. The Tibetans applied
to China for aid, and an army was collected for
the punishment of this act of unprovoked out-
rage. The Goorkhas met them at Tingri Mydan,
and the two armies were for some time in presence,
but the Chinese made at last a general attack, and
the Nipalese were defeated. The Chinese general,
following up his victory, took thtf frontier post of

AND MONGOLIA.

19

NIpal, called Koti,and showed a disposition further
to penetrate into the southern hills. Captain Kirk-
patrick was at this time resident at Katmandoo,
on the part of Lord Cornwallis, governor-general
of India. His instructions were, studiously to
avoid anything like interference in the quarrel
with Tibet ; but to hold always the language of
reprobation and displeasure in respect to this un-
provoked act of the Goorkha court. The conse-
quence was, that despairing of aid from us, the
Goorklias submitted unconditionally to the Chi-
nese commander, who imposed a tribute, and tri-
ennial mission to Pekin, besides restitution of all
the booty taken at Teeshoo Loomboo, and took
hostages for the performance of these stipulations.
The Raja of Sikhiin was at the same time taken
under Chinese protection, so as to prevent the ex-
tension of Goorkha conquest eastward. This is
the hill principality with which we recently had
a quarrel consequently upon the detention of
Dr. Campbell, our agent at Darjeeling, while
upon an excursion beyond the limits of that sta-
tion, which excited Chinese jealousy. The at-
tempt to explore the passes through the moun-
tains was thus checked, and resented by the in-
tervention of the local authorities, most probably
at the instance or suggestion of the Cliinese officers
at Lassa.

20

TIBET, TAKTARY

Checked towards the East by these events, the
Goorkhas extended their dominion westward, sub-
jugating Kumaon, Sirinugur, and all the hill
country to the Sutlej. Their restless rapacity
could not be restrainc^d from plundering and en-
croaching upon British subjects, and on rajas
within the British frontier. This brought on the
Nipal war of 1814-16, which terminated in the
British conquest of Kumaon, and of all the western
hills, and the cession of that territory to the Bri-
tish by a formal treaty, which was signed and de-
livered to General Ochterlony, on the 4th March,
1816. It is under the stipulations of this treaty
that we have now a permanent resident stationed
at Katmandoo.

The Chinese viewed, with great jealousy, the
establishment of a British political officer at the
court of one of their tributaries, for the Nipal
Raja had continued since 1792 to send the tri-
ennial mission, with presentr:, to Pekin, in ac-
knowledgment of fealty. In September, 1816,
the court of Pekin sent a special commissioner,
with such troops as could be collected, to call
their feudatory to account for his proceedings. A
mission of explanation was accordingly sent from
Katmandoo, which was rated soundly by the Chi-
nese commissioner, whose name was Choong Chang,

AND MONGOLIA.

21

for having brought war upon their country by
wanton aggressions and acts of violence, and for
having rciiresontcd the British object in the war
to be to obtain command of the passes into Tibet
To the Governor- General of India, Choong Chang
wrote as follows : —

IT is Imperial Majesty, who, by God’s blessing,
is W(dl informed of the conduct and proceedings
of all mankind, reflecting on the good faith and
wisdom of the English, and the firm frit^ndship
and constant commercial intercourse which has
so long subsisted between the two nations, never
placed any reliance on the calumnious imputations
put forward by the Goorkha Raja,” &c. &c. You
mention that you have stationed an envoy in
Nipal. This is a matter of no consequence ; but,
as the raja from his youth and inexperience, and
from the novelty of the thing, has imbibed sus-
picions, if you would, out of kindness to us, and
in consideration of the tics of friendship subsisting,
withdraw your envoy, it would be better ; and
we should feel inexpressibly gratified for the con-
sideration shown to our wishes.” To this, the
Marquis of Hastings replied, that if the Chinese
government would send a high officer to Nipal,
through whom we might seek redress, in case of
future injuries and aggressions, we might then

22

TIBET, TARTARY

dispense with the presence of an envoy at Kat-
mandoo : otherwise there seemed no alternative
but to keep him there, to give and receive expla-
nations, as the best and only way of preventing
differences hereafter. To this the court of China
replied, after a long interval, in these words : —
Be it known to you, that the Goorkha Raja has
long been a faithful tributary of the Chinese go-
vernment, and refers himself to it whenever occa-
sion requires. There is, therefore, no need of
deputing thither any one from this empire. Be-
sides, by the grace of God, His Majesty, possessing
the sovereignty of the whole kingdom of China,
and other countries, does not enter the city of any
one without cause. If it so happen that his vic-
torious forces take the field, in such case, after
punishing the refractory, he, in his royal clemency,
restores the transgressor to his throne. We have
not thought it our duty to represent this matter
to the throne, as it is opposed to the customs of
this empire. The merchants who frequent the
port of Canton, can inform your lordship of our
customs. JFor the future y a proposition so contrary
to usage, should not he introduced into a friendly
dispatch.^^ With this display of humour the cor-
respondence closed. It is to be remarked as sin-
gular, that Tibet is never once referred to by the

AND MONGOLIA.

23

Chinese officers. The affair is treated as one con-
cerning China and its tributary, Nipal, and none
other. In tlie time of Warren Hastings, when
we were embroiled with Bootan, under circum-
stances not very dissimilar, it was the Lama
who interceded, and with whom we had relations
in consequence. The Emperor of China was then
only the friend and patron of the Lamas of I'ibet,
but in 1816 their political existence was absolutely
ignored. This change seems to have resulted from
the resort to Chinese military aid, in order to repel
the Nipalese incursion of 1792.

Tibet thus rested in its sleci> of isolation, shut
out from European travellers and unheard of in
the annals of the world’s history, until the Sikh
conquest of Ladak and Balti, on its western fron-
tier, disturbed in some measure its repose. Zora-
wiir Singh, the Sikh general, who commanded the
expedition, sent from Kashmeer by Goolab Singh
in 1839, after taking Ladak and Iskardo, marched
up the valley of the Indus into Gnari, a province
of Tibet, and captured Gurtokh, its capital. His
force was inconsiderable, and he Avrote in vain
for supplies and reinforcements. They were not
easily furnished across the many intervening
ranges of snow-capped mountains. Winter was now
approaching, and Zorawur Singh fortified for him-
self a cantonment near Gurtokh, when a Chinese

24

TIBET, TARTARY

and Tibetan force surrounded him and cut off his
supplies. His detachment was thus overpowered
and himself slain. About 120 miserable Sikh
fugitives found their way, half frozen, across the
Niti Pass, into the British province of Kumaon,
and told the tale. This occurred in the winter of
1841-1842, at the very time when the British force
of Kabool was similarly overpowered by the Af-
ghans. The Chinese and Tibetans did not follow
up their victory, and made no use of it to extend
their frontier towards Ladak. The Sikhs, there-
fore, soon recovered, and liavo since maintained,
their possession of the valleys as well of the Indus,
up to Debrung, as of the entire Shayuk river.
When the Sikh Avar Avith the British tcTminated in
the establishment of our ascendancy in the Punjab,
and in the permanent assignment of Kashmecr and
its tributaries to Raja Goolab Singh, British officers
were sent to ascertain and settle the frontier line
of* the territory so cominitted to his management,
where it met that of territory subject to Tibet or
China. This duty was executed by Lieutenant
Strachey, vdiose mission has furnished much
geographical information, and many scientific de-
tails respecting the elevated regions he visited
beyond the Himalaya, and in which these two
rivers have their sources.

While, however, Tibet has been thus hermeti-

AND MONGOLIA.

25

cally scaled against us on the side of India, two
French missionaries have succeeded in effecting a
passage into it, and in reaching its capital, Lassa,
from the north-east. They came from the Koko-
noor^lake, or inland sea, by the same route that
had been followed by fathers Grueber and Dorville,
two centuries before, and one of them, M. Hue,
has recently piiblished in two volumes, in French,
a full account of the incidents of this journey
It is the conviction of the trustworthiness of the
information contained in these volumes, and the
desire to make it more extensively known to the
British public, and especially to those Englishmen
whose oceuxiations abroad give value to authentic
details regarding the habits, religion, and geography
of these little knovni regions, that we have been led
to make this coinjiilation and to compress the sub-
stance of M. Hue’s work into the following pages.

Every one has heard of the mission established
at Pekin under French Jesuits. The founder of it
was Pere Ricci, who went from Macao into the in-
terior of China, in a.d. 1585, and established him-
self in the first instance at Nankin. He was a good
mathematician, and making himself master of the
Chinese language, published some maps of the
world in Chinese ; and gave lessons and instruc-
tions generally in European science. He thus

c

26

TIBET, TARTARY

acquired in that country a high reputation for
learning, and commenced circulating tracts upon
religion, and upon the immortality of the soul, and
a future state. Sometimes persecuted, and some-
times applauded and followed, he removed, after a
few years, from Nankin to Pekin, where he was well
received, and his doctrines made an impression
on some nobles of the court. He lived there
for many years, the recognised head of several
missionary establishments, located in different
parts of China, making many converts, and re-
spected by all until his death, which occurred at
the age of fifty-seven, in the year 1610. The
Ming dynasty was at this period in its decadence.
Chun-chi, the Manchoo Tartar completed its fall
in 1644. During the convulsions which attended
this revolution, the French Jesuits met with varied
fortune, but Chun-chi, upon his assumption of
the imperial dignity, in the vear stated, called
Father Schall, the successor of Father Kicci, to
his court at Pekin, and received him there with
great distinction, nominating him president of the
tribunal of mathematics, and giving him the entree
to his own presence at all times, with other favours.
It w^as in the last year of this reign, that Father
Grueber returned to Europe through Tibet and
India as before mentioned.

AND MONGOLIA.

^7

Upon Chun -Chi’s death, in 1662, his suc-
cessor, Kang-hi, was only eight years old, and
during his minority the Jesuits and their converts
were proscribed and persecuted by the Chinese
tribunals. Father Adam Schall died in prison
during these persecutions, under sentence of death,
and the Jesuit missions were for a time broken
But when Kang-hi came to his majority, and took
into his own hands the reins of power, he caused
the sentence of condemnation passed against Adam
Schall to be reversed, and received the Jesuits
again into favour. A maternal uncle of the Em-
peror declared himself a convert in a.d, 1672, and
was publicly baptized ; others followed, and fresh
missions were, at this jicriod, established in dif-
ferent parts of China, where the religion spread
rapidly. Father Verbien, the successor of Adam
Schall, wTOte now to the Pope, to ask for assist-
ance in the work of conversion, and further mis-
sions of Dominicans, Franciscans, and Augustins,
were despatched from Rome, to carry out the
views and realize the high expectations then en-
tertained. Father Verbien died unfortunately
just at the time when these reinforcements ar-
rived, and a schism then arose between the Jesuits
and the Dominicans, as to the propriety of allow-

28

TIBET, TARTARS

ing (Jhinese converts to continue the rites and
observances practised universally by that nation in
honour of parents and ancestors. The Jesuits
were for yielding this, and for not regarding the
reverence so paid to ancestry in the light of an
idolatrous worship, inconsistent with the Christian
notion of the Divine nature, as the sole object of
adoration and prayer. Not so the Dominicans ;
and this schism not only divided and paralyzed
the action of the missions in China, but for half
a century was debated all over Europe, and
was carried even to the papal authority for final
decision. After many rescripts, and several fruit-
less attempts to reconcile differences and avoid
giving a final judgment, Clement XI. at last, m
1710, declared finaDy against yielding any indul-
gence to Chinese usage in the matter of reverence
to parents and ancestors, and sent out a Legate
Cardinal, a M. de Tournon, to enforce this decision,
in 1715.

Kang-hi, the Chinese Emperor, had in the mean
time taken the Jesuits into great favour. He em-
ployed them in rectifying his calendar, and in sur-
veying and mapping his dominions, and in teach-
ing his subjects to cast cannon and other useful
arts, and but for this schism magnificent results

AND MONGOLIA.

29

might have followed. But when he heard of the
Pope’s decision in favour of the Dominicans, he
took a decided part for the maintenance of the in-
stitutions and usages of his own subjects. He
treated the Legate, M. de Tournon, with harsh-
ness, and ordered him back to Canton, immediately
he learned that he was the bearer of orders from
the Pope, to disallow parental reverence, and the
usual observances. Christianity has from that time
forward, been exhibited and proclaimed to the
Chinese, as a false and" seditious conspiracy to
overturn the laws and institutions of the empire,
and to set sons against fathers, and wives against
husbands. It is on this ground that the preaching
and proclaiming of Christianity are to this day
proscribed in China. All the persecutions of
the eighteenth century had their origin in the
conviction, that the defence and maintenance of
the ancient laws in favour of the parental autho-
rity required an overt action against doctrines,
quite repugnant to those usages and observances,
and which substituted the priest for the parent in
every family.

But Kaiig-hi, though he took this strong part
against the papal decree in support of the Domi-
nicans, continued to favour the Jesuits of his
court, whose scientific services he still needed. He

30

TIBET, TARTARY

died in 1722, after a prosperous reign of sixty
years. Yong-Ching, who succeeded him, en-
couraged the tribunals in their persecution of the
converts to Christianity, and even banished from
court the Jesuits, and several members of his own
family, who favoured the new religion.

Kien-long, who succeeded to the throne in
1735, and who reigned, like Kang-hi, for sixty
years, recalled his Christian relatives from exile,
and seemed at first favourably disposed to the
Jesuit missions ; but upon a representation from
his high officers, he at last passed an edict for the
expulsion of all priests and missionaries. The
Jesuits were, at this period, proscribed in Europe
also, and the mission they had established in
China languished in consequence, and fell into
inaction ; and thus, for want of due suiiport to
keep alive the zeal both of professors and jireachers,
the hope of extensively spreading Christianity in
China yielded to the severity with which the edicts
against preaching its doctrines were carried into
execution. Some Jesuits appear, however, to
have been permitted to maintain a small establish-
ment at Pekin, for the purpose of assisting in the
preparation of the annual almanacks ; but they
were restricted from preaching, and not allowed
to travel, or to communicate freely with strangers,

AND MONGOLIA.

SI

and were scarcely recognised. The Emperor,
Kia-King, who ascended the throne in 1799, com-
pleted the destruction of the hopes of the propa-
gandists, and driving the last remains of the
French mission out of Pekin, renewed the perse-
cution of converts with greater rigour.

In China Proper, there are tribunals with a
strict police, and a machinery of local administra-
tion, that make it nearly impossible for converts to
Christianity to evade the law and escape punish-
ment. They were everywhere discovered and
plundered ; and if they would not consent to re-
nounce the new faith, their lives even were in
danger. But the influence of Chinese laws, and of
the civil power for the execution of edicts is very
different beyond the Great Wall. In Mongolia,
called by the Chinese, the Land of Herbs, the
Tartar tribes retain their own laws and forms
of government. Each Khan, or Tao-tse tribu.
tary, rules his own tribe, and the simple habits
of the men of the desert make that rule very
light and easy. The Chinese, taking advantage
of this simplicity, emigrate largely from China,
and settle in the valleys of Mongolia, wherever
they can find a soil that will repay cultivation.
They appear to settle down as separate and
nearly independent communities, under elected

32

TIBET, TART ARY

chiefs or captains, and whether dealing with the
chief of a tribe, or with individuals, contrive gene-
rally to get the better, displacing the nomade po-
pulation, and establishing their own usages and
modes of life. The persecution of Christian con-
verts by the Chinese authorities, led many of them
to become emigrants to Mongolia. Several settle-
ments were thus formed by them in the valleys
of the southern feeders of the river Amour,
or Sagalien, about one hundred miles due north
of Pekin. In the days of the Republic, and of
the Empire in France, little heed was taken of the
relations of the ancient French Church with these
people ; but upon the restoration of the Bourbons,
they became the subject of inquiry, and zealous
men of the religious orders were not wanting, to
undertake the mission of reclaiming and bringing
again within that Church, the scattered flock of its
persecuted proselytes. In the Ooniot district of
‘^the Land of Herbs,” there is a valley called that
of ‘^the Black Waters,” whither many of the
Chinese converts had retired. There an establish-
ment was formed, under Lazarist missionaries
from Paris, which unobtrusively following its vo-
cation, gathered together a considerable congre-
gation of these converts, and brought many Mon-
golians also to accept the Christian creed. Hearing

AND MONGOLIA.

ss

of their success, the Roman Pontiff, in 1842,
appointed the head of this mission, who resided
at Siwang, to be his vicar-apostolic in Mongolia.
Excited by this to fresh efforts, these Lazarist
missionaries conceived the design, of exploring the
desert, and of penetrating even into Tibet, with
a view to the establishment there of a subordinate
mission. Two members of the brotherhood,
fatliers Gabet and Hue, wore selected by the
vicar-apostolic for this adventurous duty ; and the
account, recently publislied by the latter, of the
circumstances and events of their journey, and of
its toils and dangers, furnishes proof abundant of
the judicious selection made, and of the high qua-
lifications for the undertaking possessed by both
missionaries. In the dress and character of
Tibetan Lamas, attended by a single servant, a
man of a half-civilised race from the vicinity of
the Koko-noor, who had been brought to profess
Christianity, these two French gentlemen started
from the ‘‘Valley of Black Waters,” north of Pekin,
to live for years the life of Tartars of the desert ;
subsisting on their meagre fare, and enduring all
their hardships and privations, cherished and
supported during their severe trials by the high
aim of their sacred calling, and by their devotion
to the faith they desired to spread. They took the

c 3

34

TIBET, TARTAHY

line of the great wall of China, but kept generally
on the desert side of it, and so followed up the
Hoang-Ho, or Yellow River, till they reached and
rounded its sources* Wintering in the valley of
the Koko-noor, salt lake, they next year crossed
the yet more mighty Yang-tse-Kiang, or Blue
River, and so reached the Snowy Mountains and
high table-lands of Tibet, which separate the waters
of China from those of India. Passing these in
the midst of winter, they penetrated at last to
the city of Lassa, where they were well received by
the Tibetan authorities. There, it was their de-
sign to have established a separate mission under
the Mongolian vicar-apostolic ; but the Chinese
envoy at Lassa, the same Ke-Shin, who met the
British admiral at the mouth of the Pichelce, in
1840, and who negociated the first treaty with
Mr. Elliot afterwards at Canton, laid his veto on
the scheme, and sent the two missionaries back
into China, by a route, hitherto, so far as we
know, quite unexplored by any European. They
passed among the mountains north of Bootaii and
Ava, and so made their way due east to the plains
of the Central Flowery Land,” where these are
watered by the Yang-tse-Kiang^ in its full mag-
nificence. It is of this journey, and of its hard-
ships, perils and privations, exceeding perhaps

AND MONGOLIA.

35

those ever endured by traveller who lived to tell
the tale, that M. Hue has given us his recollec-
tions. The travellers could keep no journal ; their
lives would have been forfeited^ if they had been
seen to take notes, or to make sketches of what
they saw and heard. It is on this account, that
we find a lamentable deficiency of dates, distances,
and of other particulars, of the kind that one
usually looks for in books of travels. Nevertheless,
there is in the volumes an aggregate of intelli-
gence, and a fund of characteristic traits, and well
told anecdotes, bearing intrinsically the stamp of
truth, that gives to them a value, and an interest,
far exceeding those of ordinary books of the kind,
and sufficient fully to compensate the reader for
the want of the scientific details of a Humboldt and
a Pallas. But, what is in our eyes by far the most
important part of these recollections of M. Hue,
is the detailed account we find there of the
monastic and academic institutions of Tartary and
Tibet, and of the studies, habits and discipline of
the several classes of Lamas. The two missionaries
lived for months together in Lamaserais, or con-
vents, in the valley of the Koko-noor, salt lake,
associating daily with Lamas of all degrees, and
mixing in their studies. Their information on
these subjects, therefore, is not that of mere

36

TIBET, TART ARY

passing travellers ; and their observations on the
working of the Boodhist monastic system, in its
influence on the people, and in its relations with
the Manchoo Government of China, derive addi-
tional value from their own connection with similar
institutions of Europe.

But we trespass on the patience of our readers
by this preface. They will be impatient for a
summary of the real contents of the volumes. To
this, therefore, we hasten.

In preparation for the journey, the missionaries
employed a Mongol convert to procure camels
from the borders of Tibet. They had nearly de-
spaired of the arrival of these animals, owing to
the time that had elapsed since they heard of
their dispatch, and had in consequence made
arrangements for their own departure in a waggon
of the country, when the camels made their ap-
pearance, under their faithful conductor, a Chiaour
of Northern Tibet, named Sanibda-Chamba, who
had been brought up as a Lama before his con-
version, and still wore the di'ess. The caravan
was then arranged, and commenced its march in
the following order : — The Tibetan led, mounted on
a black mule, and drawing after him a string of
two camels, bearing a tent and the baggage
M.Gabet rode next upon a dromedary, and M.Huc

AND MONGOLIA.

37

brought up the rear, mounted on a white horse.
These, with a watch-dog, formed the entire train
that started for a journey of five-and-twenty de-
grees of longitude and ten of latitude, across the
unknown elevated regions of central Asia. Before
starting, the missionaries had to change their cos-
tume. Amongst their Chinese converts, they had
dressed habitually in the secular habit of China,
wearing the long tail, so inestimably prized by all
of this nation. For the journey, they shaved their
heads, and assumed the same dress as their con-
ductor Sambda Chamba, which was the secular
habit of a Tibetan Lama. Tliis was essential for
the character the travellers intended to bear, which
was that of Lamas of the west, come to inquire
into the doctrines and ritual of Tibet, the holy
ground of the Boodhist religion. As laymen
(called by Tibetans, black men), it would have
been impossible for them to have talked of re-
ligion, or to have shown any acquaintance with
its doctrines or ritual, but as secular Lamas the
enquiry was both natural and praiseworthy. The
missionaries, tlioiigh they carried a tent, were
glad to put up at the hotels of the country, where
there were any, as was ordinarily the case, within
the frontiers of China Proper. Thcie they found
always a hot meal, and a kang^ or elevated dais.

38

TIBET, TARTARY

SO contrived as to be heated by the same fire that
served to boil the caldron that cooked their din-
ner. The guests sit cross-legged upon the kang
for their meal, and spread their beds afterwards
in rows, with their feet towards one another, and so
in the severest winter our travellers contrived to
sleep with some comfort. In the tent there was
no such security from the cold, and sometimes they
had the greatest difficulty in even lighting a fire,
which, at the best, was but of argols or dung -fuel.

Y an-pa-ool was the district town from which the
start was made. Thence, after three hours of la-
borious ascent, the caravan reached the table-land
of the Sain-otda Mountains, in which the Chara
Mooren,a large tributary of the Amour or Sagalicn,
has its sources. On this table-land, the travellers
began their experience of the hardships of Tartar
travel. After pitching their tent, they had to col-
lect the argols, or dung, left by the camels and
other animals of preceding caravans, which or dir
narily was the only fuel available throughout the
whole of their long journey. With this fuel, when
they had made their pot to boU, they heated some

Kwamin^^ a kind of vermicelli, prepared for the
purpose, which, with a slice of bacon added, when
procurable, formed the whole of their luxurious
meal at the commencement of the journey. As

AND MONGOLIA.

39

they proceeded, this meal was reduced to^^Tsamba/’
a decoction of brick-tea/ and meal mixed up with
a little butter. For more than an entire year,
these French missionaries had very rarely a supe-
rior meal to such as we have above described, and
never better beds than their skin cloaks spread
upon the ground. Hear this, ye travellers by rail
and steam-boat ! who grumble if your dinner of
three courses be not served in ten minutes, and
who find nothing but discomfort in the princely
hotels of the llhine and of the high roads of
Europe !

On the table-land of the Sain-oula, the travellers
crossed part of the hunting ground of Jeho-ool,
which they describe as of surpassing beauty and
richness. The descent to the south-west brought
them to the district of Jeshekten (Gcchcktenj, a
fertile country, in which Chinese industry and
chicanery are encroaching largely on the pastoral
habits, and on the properties of the Mongols. In
this district, as well as in that of the Ooniots, left
by the missionaries on the other side of the Sain-
oula range, gold is procured in abundance. It
exists in mines, and there is a class of men among

* The tea of Tartar j is formed into bricks by compression of
the leaves, and is very coarse and inferior to that sold by the
Chinese for the European market.

40

TIBET, TARTARY

the Chinese, who possess, or pretend to, the power
of discovering from the soil and vegetation whete
this metal is to be found. Upon a discovery being
declared by one of these, parties of vagabonds
gather about him, who, with their head-quarters
at the mine, commit excesses exceeding those of
California, and subsist by plundering the entire
neighbourhood. M. Hue tells a story of a body
of miners, who so settled in the Ooniot country to
the number of 1^,000, and for two years were the
terror of the vicinity. At last, a Mongol princess
passing near the mine, was plundered of her jewels,
which induced the Ooniot chieftain to collect his
horde for vengeance. The Chinese were over-
powered, and massacred without mercy, and many
of them taking refuge in their mine, the mouth
was blocked up, and they perished miserably. This ,
be it observed, was not 200 miles from the capital
Pekin, and shows how little real authority the
Chinese government possesses over the free hordes
of Mongolia: but of that, more presently. From
Jeshekten, the travellers passed into the district of
the eight banners of Chakars, the same natiojj
apparently that Father Rubruquis calls Jugures.
There, meeting some Tartars in search of stray
horses, they were much importuned to cast a
horoscope to determine in what direction the lost

AND MONGOLIA.

41

animals would be found. Their servant wondered
at their refusal, and told how well he had fared
heretofore by acceding to such requests. Divina-
tion, it seems, is one of the recognised sources of
a Lama’s livelihood.

In the Chakar district, they came to the city of
Tolo-Noor (seven lakes) called by Chinese Lama
Mias,” by Mongols Nadan Omo,” by Tibetans
Sat Doon.” On the French map the place bears
the name of Naiinan Soome.” What can a
geographer do with such' a nomenclature ? This
city, like most of those out of China, has no mu-
nicipality, no police, no drainage, no pavement,
no lights. The passage through its streets is, in
consequence, perilous as well as difficult, from
obstructions of all kinds ; if a wheel carriage up-
sets, a mob plunders it with impunity, and camels
and other laden animals are frequently disabled in
the muddy quagmires, and similarly rifled. Still,
the city is a great mart of the commerce of Tar-
tary, as well with Northern China as with Ki-
akhta. There are foundries in Tolo-Noor for
casting brass and iron statues, bells and metal
utensils of all kinds, and the missionaries wit-
nessed the dispatch to Tibet of a statue of Boodh,
cast in pieces, and laden upon eighty-four camels.
They availed themselves of the opportunity of their

TIBET, TARTARY

visit to this mart, to have a Christ cast in bronze
after a French model, and M. Hue bears testimony
to the high state of art of the Chinese, declaring
that it was impossible to distinguish the copy from
the original.

On the 1st of October, 1844, one of the very
few dates of our calendar given by M. Hue, the
missionaries left Tolo-Noor. Their camels passed
through the slippery and deep mire of the streets
with extreme difficulty. But they were no sooner
beyond the suburbs, than they entered upon the
sands of the great Tartar desert. After a fatiguing
day’s march, they encamped at a mineral spring
of very nauseous water, but finding wood fuel,
made a luxurious meal. The next day they fell
in with the suite of a princess of the royal race of
Jungeez Khan, of the Khalkhas tribe, who was
travelling upon a pilgrimage to the famous Bood-
hist monastery of the five towers in the province
of Shense. They left the princess, after a cour-
teous interchange of civilities, and pushed on until
overtaken by a storm of wind and rain, in the
midst of which they vainly endeavoured to set up
their tent and light their fire. They were relieved
by some hospitable Mongols, who saw their dis-
tress. One of these proved to be a soldier, not
long returned from the war with the English. He

AND MONGOLIA.

43

stated the order of service in the Chinese empire
to be that first the Chinese militia are sent
against an invading enemy. Next the banner of
the Solo hordes is raised. After them the Chakar
tribes arc called out.” Were all the Chakars
called out on this occasion?” asked the mission-
aries. Yes/’ said the soldier, all.” At first,
little was thought of the war, and it was said the
Chakars will not be required. P>ul the Chinese
militia could do nothing. The Solo troops marched,
but the heat of the South destroyed them. Then
came the Emperor’s order into our country ; every
one immediately furbished his arms and prepared
for the campaign. For six generations we had
not been called upon, but the Emperor, who gave
us this fine country, now required our services.
We were bound in duty to answer the call. The
eight banners were gathered, and we marched to
Pekin. Thence they sent us to Tien-Tsin-vei,
where we were in camp for three months.” Did
you ever see the enemy and meet in battle ?”

No ! he dared not show himself. The Chinese
told us we were marching to certain death ; that
the enemy were sea monsters, hiding themselves
under water, and coming out when not expected,
to discharge fiery water melons (bombs and shells),
that before one could bend a bow against them.

44

TIBET, TART ARY

they disappeared again under water like frogs.
Us, too, they thought to frighten with such stories.
But we cared not. The Grand Lama had been
consulted and had assured us of a prosperous
issue. We had a Lama acquainted with medicine
attached to each (Chounda) company, and why
should we fear ? But the enemy, when they heard
of our approach, were alarmed and sued for peace ;
and our holy master (the Emperor) acceded to
their request out of compassion, so we returned
without meeting them in battle.’’ This Mongol
soldier left the missionaries before they could
further satisfy their curiosity about the events of
the war.

The Chakar country is bounded on the east by
Jeshekten, on the west by Tourmet, and by the
Sooniot district on the north, and is said to be a
hundred and fifty leagues long, by a hundred
broad. The district was assigned to the eight
banners of the Chakar horde as a barrier against
the Khalkhas, which, as being the tribe of Jun-
geez Khan, the Manchoos view with great jealousy,
as well because of its ancient glories, as of the
aspirations whicVi the descendants of this mighty
conqueror still delight to entertain. A Chakar
cannot sell his assigned land to other than a
Chakar. A Chinese purchaser is at once ejected.

AND MONGOLIA.

45

The Chakars are guardians of the imperial stud,
and draw considerable emoluments from the frauds
which the trust enables them to perpetrate.

From theChakar country, the missionaries passed
to Chabort^ (the swamp), which they reached on
the day of the Yue-ping fmoon cake) festival. This
festival is of great antiquity ; but, since the year
1368, it has been kcj)t by the Chinese with par-
ticular honour ; for in that year, a Sicilian vesper
was prepared secretly against the Tartars, and the
announcement of the hour of rising was circulated
in the cakes of the festival. This perversion of
the rites of the day has, however, been forgotten
in the lapse of years, and Mongols now join with
the Chinese in its celebration. The missionaries
were invited by a Mongol to partake of the festi-
vities, and with very questionable good breeding
reminded the host of the massacre of his ancestors,
to which the festival had contributed ; but this did
not aftect the cordiality of thei» reception. They
were presented with brother Benjamin’s slices of
the fat of monstrous sheep’s-tails, a great delicacy,
though far beyond theii' digestive powers. They
divided and distributed the tit-bits among the
guests, and then fared heartily on the flesh. A
Toolholos sang in this assembly several natiqnal
songs commemorative of the glory of the Mongols,

46

TIBET, TART All Y

and amongst them, the spirited lament for T3rmoor,
so exciting to a Tartar. He gave them but half-
an-hour, and then went his round to other house-
holds, singing at each for a large gratuity, pro-
portioned to his skill. After a stay of two days, to
replenish their stores with fresh purchases, they
prepared for a start from Chaborte, but found their
mule and horse missing. The friendly Mongols
undertook the search, and soon recovcd them.
The missionaries then took the route to Koko
Khoton, or the blue city.’’ On the third day of
their march, they fell in with a deserted city, the
walls of which they found entire, and the houses
half buried in sand and earth. The place had the
appearance of having been so deserted for centuries,
and no Tartar could furnish information either of
the time or cause of the desertion. M. Hue says
that the desert abounds in such remains of all
dimensions. He assigned to them a date coeval
with the expulsion of the Mongols fi*om China,
and ascribed them to the severities of Young-ho,
an early sovereign of the Ming dynasty, who en-
deavoured to annihilate the Tartars. We should
rather suspect some failure of water to be the cause
of the desertion of these localties, for if the site
were favourable, they would assuredly have been
soon re-peopled. Near this ruined city, the tra-

AND MONGOLIA.

47

vellcrs crossed the great southern road from Ki-
akhta, by which the Russian missions are ordinarily
conducted to Pekin.

Two more days carried the travellers into the
kingdom of Ef^S, a part of the ancient territory of
the Khalkhas, but lost by them during the wars
which preceded the establishment of the present
dynasty. The early sovereigns of Manchoo race
gave this tract to the Chakars ; but it was taken
again from the eight banners of this nation, to be
given by Kien-long as dower of a princess of the
imperial family, married by him to a prince of the
ancient race of Jungeez.

The Mongols of Efe are famous for their skill as
wrestlers, and from infancy are continually training
themselves. They take pride in carrying oft* the
prizes in the annual contests held at many places,
one of which occurred when M. Timkouski was at
Oorga, and he certifies to the skill of this tribe.

On tlie 22iu\ day of the 8th moon, after passing
out of Efe, the travellers crossed a range of hills
on the road to the Chorchi Lamaserai, of one of
the inmates of which they had heretofore made a
convert, while he taught them the Mongol lan-
guage. There arc 200 Lamas on the Chorchi
establishment, which, being a favorite of the Em-
peror’s, has been richly endowed. But these insti-

48

TIBET, TARTARY

tutions rarely owe their origin to imperial bounty.
When it is proposed to build one, a number of
Lamas start in all directions to collect subscriptions
from the pious. Wherever they go they are hos-
pitably received, and rarely fail to make a large
collection, which, on their return, is devoted to the
erection of suitable buildings of brick or stone :
Round these again, the pious further build temples
and tombs, by which means the desert is soon con-
verted into the appearance of a city. The Lamas
arc themselves the sculptors and painters, and fre-
quently the artificers also in the construction of
these edifices. The principle Lamascrai of all
Mongolia is that of the Great Kouren (the Oorga
Kooren of Tim-kouski), situated in the country
of the Khalkas, on the banks of the Toula river,
and standing on the edge of the great forest that
stretches northward into Siberia. To the south, lies
the desert of a month’s jou/ncy. It stands, how-
ever, in a pleasant valley, amid mountains near the
source of the Toula, which river falls into the great
Baikal lake. There arc 30,000 Lamas, under
several heads, at Oorga ; their chief is the Geesoo-
Tamba, a regenerated Boodh, of great sanctity.
There has, of course, risen a large city and mart of
commerce in the immediate vicinity of the convent,
and it is the head quarters of Mongolia, having

AND MONGOLIA.

49

been the capital of the princes of the family of
Jungeez Khan, before their conquest of China.
Tea-bricks are here the measures of value, an ounce
of silver representing five tea-bricks. There are
Chinese mandarins at Grand Kouren, ostensibly to
preserve tfie peace amongst the Chinese merchants,
— but, in reality, to act as spies on the Geesoo-
Tamba, whose influence and powe? are very much
dreaded at Pekin. In 1839, the Geesoo-Tamba
announced a visit to the court of Pekin, which was
the cause of great alarm. His retinue was ordered
to be reduced to 3,000 Lamas, and the three petty
sovereigns of Oorga, descended from J ungeez, were
forbidden to accompany him. Still, as this hierarch
marched through Mongolia, he was received every-
where with extraordinary honours. Supplies were
provided, and wells dug at the resting-places of his
route, and the Tartars thronged from all parts to
meet and worship him. At the Great Wall, half
his small retinue was further stopped, still his pre-
sence gave inquietude to the imperial government,
and he was soon despatched from the capital, to
visit the Lamaserai of the Five Towers, and the
Blue City. He died on his way home, the victim,
it was said, of imperial jealousy ; for it was strongly
suspected that he received at Pekin a slow poison.
The same thing, it will be recollected, occurred

D

50

TIBET, TAETAEY

when the Djachi Lama visited Pekin in the days
of Warren Hastings, and it is observed to be very
much the custom for these sanctified persons to die,
before they reach the seats of their spiritual supre-
macy, on their return. Perhaps the Chinese know
they ^turn dissatisfied in their hearts, if not
disgusted, with the result of their visit to Pekin ;
and fearing, therefore, to leave this feeling rank-
ling in the breast of persons of such extensive in-
fluence, prefer to promote a regeneration, and to
take the opportunity of professing reverence and
regret, and the most profound personal attachment,
in a long obituary notice in the Pekin Gazette.

In 1844, the Geesoo Tamba was regenerated in
Tibet, and our missionaries met in the Koko-noor
valley the mission of Khalkas Tartars, which was
proceeding to bring him firom thence to the Grand
Kouren monastery. In Mongolia, besides the
Grand Kouren, monastery’- at Oorga, there are the
Mingan Lamari Kouren, L e., the thousand Lama
monastery, also that of Koko Khoton, the Blue
City,” and the Polou-noor, and Jeho-ool, Lama-
serais, in all of which, the Lamas have both civil
and criminal jurisdiction. Within the wall of
China there are the monasteries of Pekin, of the
Five Towers, and of Shensi, all of the same high
rank and privileges.

From Chorchi, the missionaries entered again

AND MONGOLIA.

51

the territory of the Chakars. They were now in the
lands of the Red Banner of that nation. From
thence, after several days march, they passed into
Western Tounnet. The eastern district of that
name lies on the other side of the Chakar terri-
tory. In the western district Chinese habits have
the ascendancy, and agriculture is extending.
Everything seemed here prosperous, and trees even
had been planted on the road-side. Three days
march in Western Tourmet brought the travellers
to the '^Bluc City” — Koko-Khoton, as it is called
in Mongolian — Kui-hwa-chen in Chinese. There
are two cities close to one another, the old and the
new; the new being the Tartar, or military estab-
lishment, built by Kang-hi, with magnificent
walls. Here the missionaries found a force of
10,000 men,under aKiang-kian. The soldiers were
originally Manchoo Tartars, but had nearly for-
gotten the Manchoo language. The missionaries
remarked, indeed, that generally, in China as well
as in Mongolia, the Manchoos had lost their na-
tionality as the result of their ascendancy. A
Manchoo is under obligation to enrol himself under
some banner, and, failing to do so, loses his pri-
vileges. Many neglect to enrol themselves volun-
tarily in order to avoid the conscription. The
Sifo and Solo are the highest tribes of Manchoos,
These are proud of their position and history, but

T' 9

53

TIBET, TARTARY

without much cause on the ground of antiquity or
of civilization, for the Manchoos had no written
character until 1641, nor was the language re-
duced to rule, and arranged in dictionaries and
grammars, until the reign of Kien-long, that is
towards the end of the eighteenth century. Mok-
den is the native capital of the Manchoos. The
Emperor has a palace there, and it is a handsome
city, one quarter of which is appropriated to the
Yellow Belts,’^ that is, to the members of the Im-
jieriaL family. In the northern districts, near the
Sagalicn, a very productive kind of cotton is said
to grow, yielding, says M, Hue, in a square of
fifteen feet, French, as much as two thousand
pounds of cotton.

Losing themselves in the muddy streets of Koko-
Khoton, the travellers were exposed to the villany
of a sharper, who reckoned upon selling them as
Tartar simpletons, but they extricated themselves
adroitly by taking refuge in the very respectable
Chinese hotel of three perfections.” Here estab-
bli8hed,they prepare^d for the coming winter by the
purchase of sheep-skin cloaks and clothing. There
is no coined money in China, except the brass
pieces with a hole in the centre, of which every
one will have seen specimens. Silver is sold by
the weight, and an ounce is the equivalent of from
1700 to 1800 of these brass coins, which are called

AND MONGOLIA.

53

sapeks by Europeans^ by the Chinese Tien, and
by Tartars Deboy. In taking change for some
ounces of silver to make these purchases, the
Chinese money-changer, thinking he was dealing
with simple Tartar Lamas, allowed a high rate,
and gave full weight, but endeavoured to cheat in
the calculation; the missionaries, however, with
their arithmetic, were too much for the Chinese
money-changer, with his saopan, and got their full
change. Their means compelled them to put up
with second-hand sheep-skin cloaks, and fox-skin
caps; they took, however, the precaution to treat
them with a mercurial process to get rid of the
vermin, a necessary operation before they could
venture to wear them.

At Koko-Khoton there are five great Lamasc-
rais, in each of which there are more than 2000
Lamas, besides fifteen smaller ones ; 20,000 is thus
a low estimate for the number of Lamas in this
famous city. The chief of the whole is a Hobil-
gan,” established at the Five Towers; that is, a
Lama, who, having by abstraction and study, ob-
tained Boodhism, has been transmitted since by
regeneration. In the reign of Kanghi,the *Geesoo-

* M. Timkowski says Koutouktou, in Mongol, and Gouss^e
(G«esoo) in Tibetan, is the name of the highest class of the priests
of Boudha ; the one resident at Ourga is called by the Mongols,
Gheghon Koutoukton.'*

54

TIBET, TARTARY

Tamba resided at Koko-Khoton ; and that empe-
ror paid him a visit when on an expedition against
the Ooloo, or Hi tribes. The insolent hierarch
received him without rising or taking the least
notice, whereupon a military mandarin in atten-
dance, drew his sword and slew him on the spot.
The city was immediately in imeutey and the Em-
peror’s person was for some time in great danger :
most of those with him were sacrificed, and
amongst them the perpetrator of the violence on
the Geesoo Tamba. The Khalkhas tribe of Mon-
golia took up the cause, and declaring that the
Geesoo Tamba had re-appeared in their country,
established a grand Lama with that title at Grand
Kouren. Everything was ripe for an insurrection ;
but Kang-hi proved equal to the occasion. He
immediately courted the Delai Lama, of Lassa,
and through him gained over all the Lamas of
Tibet and Tartary not already compromised in the
quarrel. Thus he restored tranquillity without
further collision or violence. The Lamas of Grand
Kouren, however, wear to this day a black border
on the collar of their yellow dress, in memory and
in mourning for this slaughtered Geesoo Tamba.
It was settled on this occasion that the Geesoo
Tamba should remain at Grand Kouren, and an
Hobilgan replace him at Koko-Khoton, and that

AND MONGOLIA.

66

the regeneration of the Geesoo Tamba should
always take place hereafter in Tibet, by which
means the local influence and attachments of this
hierarch are much diminished.

Koko-Khotol^ is an university in which Lamas
from all p'arts come to study and take degrees,
returning afterwards to their provincial establish-
ments. Lamas are of three kinds — the religious,
who devote themselves to study and abstraction,
and become teachers, and eventually saints; the
domestic, who live in families, or attach themselves
to tribes and localities ; and the itinerant, who axe
alway? moving from convent to convent, and tra-
veiling for travel’s sake, often without aim, not
knowing at all where they are going. There is no
country that some of these have not visited, and
when they have a religious or partisan feeling they
must be the best spies in the world.

In the monasteries of Mongolia there is a strict
religious discipline, but each Lama has generally
his cows and sheep, as well as a horse. Almost
every establishment is nobly endowed, and the
fluids are distributed on fixed days in the year, in
proportions regulated by the rank attained by
the members. But each Lama is free to seek
other emoluments, such as by practising as a phy-
sician, or by performing domestic religious ser-

56

TIBET, TARTARY

vices, or by casting horoscopes, or in any similar
manner, not inconsistent with the profession of a
Lama. Some attain vrcalth, which, having no
families, they generally spend prodigally. The
number of Lamas in Tartary is extreme ; almost
all the younger sons are devoted from infancy to
this destiny ; the eldest only being brought up as
laymen, to tend the flocks and keep up the family.
The younger brothers have no choice, but have
their heads shaf en from childhood. It is said to
be the policy of the court of Pekin to encourage
this multiplication of Lamas among the Tartars,
in the idea that it checks the increase of ^pula-
tion* The shaven are the most intelligent and
influential, if not the most numerous body of
these sons of the desert, and the Chinese pay
court to them assiduously in consequence. In
China Proper the corresponding class of Bonzes
is quite neglected by the government, and has
sunk into the most abject poverty. The reason is
obvious. A regenerated Boodh of Tibet or Tartary
can at any time call round him thousands of de*
voted Lama follow^ers, ready to sacrifice their lives
at his bidding ; and* these no less than the lay

* It is curious to observe in De Guigne’s History of the Huns,
how many of the generals and lieutenants of Jungeez Khan bore
the title of Kotooktoo.

AND MONGOLIA.

57

Tartars, whom they lead by their religious in-
fluence, have a high military spirit, and the recol-
lection of the past glories of their race in the days
of Jungeez and of Tymoor, to excite them to great
enterprises. It is hence the study of the Chinese,
and a recognised part of their policy, to associate
this influence with the State, just as the Church
in Europe is made by most governments an engine
of order and of civil government To effect this,
the government of Pekin contribrros largely to all
the monastic institutions of Mongolia, Tibet and
Tartary, and supports the hierarchy and even the
theocracies established by aspiring priests in
various parts, as at Lassa, and at the Grand Rouren
of Oorga, using these institutions to control the no-
bility as well as to lead the mob. But there is at each
seat of theocratic government a skilful Chinese di-
plomatist, who advises, and even controls, the deified
Lama ; and who, upon occasions for political action
of any kind, is the prompter and director of all
affairs, holding the strings and wires that move the
puppet, while he is treated with all outward re-
spect and reverence.

On the fourth day of the ninth moon the mis-
sionaries left Koko-Khoton, but found the utmost
difficulty in leading their camels thiough the
narrow, ever-muddy streets. The country they

58

TIBET, TARTARY

now passed througli was rich and highly cultivated
On the second day they put up at an inn, where
they met a singular character, who called himself
a Tartar-devourer,” and who was an agent to re-
cover debts owing to Chinese. The next day they
arrived at Chagan-Kouren, or the White En-
closure.” As they reached it, they fell in with a
caravan of camels laden with merchandize of the
west, which extended for fifteen lis, or five miles.
It had been trJ^Uing for five months across the
desert, and came probably from Kashghar, whence
there is a large import of jade stones and western
products.

They arrived at the town late at night, and
found a lodging with difficulty at a hospitable
Mongol’s. They were now approaching the
Hoang-Ho, or Yellow River, and learned here that
the inundations were out, and the passage across
nearly impossible. They determined, nevertheless,
to attempt it. Chagan-Kouren is a new town,
built with great regularity, having broad streets
and open squares ; but the inundation reached to
its suburbs, and the camels after leaving them had
to proceed on muddy embankments, or through
fields with the water up to their knees ; while the
whole plain before them had the appearance of a
great lake. At a village which they reached, after

AND MONGOLIA.

59

a laborious but short march^ they bargained with
some boatmen for the passage^ and were asked
two thousand sapeks to carry them, over the first
channel. They reduced the charge to eight hun-
dred, and were so conveyed to a station on the
bank of the main stream, which was rapid but not
very broad. Here they bargained again to be
carried across this channel for another thousand
sapeks, making an ounce of silver for \he whole
passage. Their camels were taken into the boat at
the second passage, an enterprise effected with ex-
treme difficulty. They had forded the first stream
under bad guidance and were nearly lost. The
missionaries, after crossing this main stream, had
yet a third branch, the Paga-Gol, to get over, and
a march across muddy inundated fields to make
before they could reach its bank. That march
eflfected, they remained some days on the northern
bank of the Paga-Gol, disputing about the terms
of transport. At last they affected the transit by
the favour of a fisherman, who having been bitten
by a fierce dog, came to them for medical treat-
ment. When the styptic they administered had
been applied with success, the fisherman, being
ashamed of his inability to pay the usual fee, un-
dertook for the passage of the party on reasonable
terms. The right of ferry, it may be observed, is

60

TIBET, TARTARY

a monopoly enjoyed under a royal grant by a
family, whose exorbitant demand was beyond the
travellers’ means, and this was the cause of their
long detention at this point.

Beyond the Paga-Gol lies the countrji of the
Ortoos, which extends a hundred leagues from
east to west, and sixty-six from north to south.
In A.D. 1635, the tribes of this region sided with
• the Manchoos, in their contest with the last of the
Ming dynasty, and thus came into great favour
with Kanghi, who declared them the most honest
and intelligent of his subjects, and the best cattle
breeders of all the Mongol Tartars. But the
country is a sandy desert throughout, producing
nothing except wild hemp, the dried remains of
which formed a fuel much superior to the argols,
or camel’s and bullock’s dung, which our travellers
usually depended upon for their meal. But the
great want of this country is water, and owing to
the sterility in consequence, the Ortoos are in the
greatest misery, and beggars are here more numer-
ous than in Ireland. In crossing the Ortoos ter-
ritory, the travellers encountered a storm of wind,
and rain and snow, that reduced them to the
greatest possible state of distress and difficulty.
But they found by good fortune, some caves
and deserted rock habitations, which gave them

MU^UUlilA.

bl

shelter, and afforded the means of drying their
clothes and refitting the caravan. They met
here a Tartar, who told them that the caves
had been thus prepared by a party of Chinese
who had settled there to cultivate the adjacent
lands. When they grew rich and insolent, the
Tartars resolved to expel them, and accordingly
drove cattle into their ripe fields, destroying the
entire crop, which had led to the Chinese decamp-
ing in a body about two years before. After
leaving these caves, the missionaiies experienced
the extreme cold of one of those winds of Tartary,
which are described as so terrible* The cold was
too severe to allow of their continuing the march,
and it gave them full employment to collect fuel
for a good fire. After a halt of two days, the wind
becoming more moderate, they resumed their
march, but could not draw their tent pins without
first heating them several times with hot water
poured round them. They had, however, no sooner
commenced the march than they felt the heat
quite oppressive; such are the alternations of tem-
perature in that terrible climate. On the 15th
day of the Ninth Moon, the missionaries fell in
with pilgrims on their way to Rash-chooren, to see
a Lama, who had vowed there to cut open his
bowels in public. For this the devotee jDrepares

62

TIBET, TARTARY

by long penance, prayer and abstraction : on the
day appointed he sits on an altar, and deliberately
ripping open his belly, lays the bowels before him,
and so falling into a kind of trance, answers
oracularly all questions put by the pilgrims. The
operation finished, he gathers his bowels up again,
and reciting a long prayer, readjusts his girdle as if
nothing had happened. We commend this miracle
to the Magician of the North. The missionaries
resolved to go a little out of their road to witness
the exhibition, but lost their way, and passed a
miserable night in the desert. Beyond the mo-
nastery of Rash-chooren, they came to the salt
lakes of Dabsoon-noor, which, though nearly dry,
required great care in the crossing, owing to the
multitude of quicksands, and general treachery of
the soil. Round these lakes are rich pastures for
cattle, and especially for camels. Two days’ journey
beyond them, the travellers halted, still amid rich
pastures, and purchased a sheep for a feast from a
Lama, who procured them also an accomplished
butcher, and brought his family to partake of the
dainty meal. The description of these festivities
will well repay the reader ; but we refrain from
entering into the details. On the next day, after
a long march, the water had to be drawn from a
deep well, the mouth of which was closed with a

AND MONGOLIA.

dd

large stone. Another long march brought them to
the Hundred Wells and on the day after, they
met the Prince or King of Alishan, on his way to
Pekin to render homage. Three Tartars of this
I)rince’s suite passed the night with the missionaries,
and explained the relations which subsisted between
Alishan, and the court of Pekin. The tributes
paid by all these Tartar chiefs are little more than
nominal, — a camel, or a horse of particular breed,
or any special rarity the country may produce of
the vegetable or animal kingdom, forms the tribute.
One of the chiefs of the Chakar tribes, for instance,
pay^lfribute in pheasants* eggs, which are used to
give lustre to the hair of the imperial concubines.
But all such tribute^nust be offered in person by
the head of the principality, and the visit is re-
quired to be annual, unless in consequence of the
distance the period is extended to three years as a
great favour. Arrived at Pekin, the tributaries
are treated very unceremoniously ; they have no
separate audiences, but on great days, like that of
the New Year, or the Emperor’s biithday, they
stand round, and sec the Imperial countenance ap-
proach from a distance. Immediately on his ap-
pearance, they must all fall on their knees, and
perform the Kotou, never rising till the Emperor
has passed. On the other hand, all these petty

64

TIBET, TARTARY

cliicfs are pensioned, some receiving as much as
£2,000 per annum, and others less. The stipends
are paid in hard silver, at the time of presenting
the tribute, but occasionally the tributaries receive
plated ingots instead of genuine ones.

The information given by these Tartars of the
character of the Alishan country, and of its recent
sufferings from drought, decided the missionaries
to take a more eastern route through Chinese ter-
ritory to the Koko-noor valley, crossing again the
Hoang-ho, or Yellow river, for the pui-pose. By
this route, they would pass within two days’ march
of the native country of their servant, SJlibda
Chamba, which was to him a source of great satis-
faction, as he had not seen 1^ family for eighteen
years. From due west, the travellers now turned
a little to the south, and were directed on their
march by a Tartar, whose information confirmed
their map : but the water at their next stage was
very putrid, and required to be purified by char-
coal. They passed here through mountains of
schist, which had the appearance of having been
heretofore washed by an ocean wave, and presented
the most grotesque forms, besides being covered
with shells and marine fossils, and being worn into
caves evidently by water action.

After crossing this range, the Yellow River was

AND MONGOLIA.

65

seen at its foot, still a magnificent stream, and was
passed to the little town of Sh6 Tsui Dze at a
reasonable ferry charge. The missionaries now
found themselves upon Chinese ground, at the end
of two months from the date of their departure
from the Valley of Black Waters.” At Sh^ Tsui
Dze, they put up at the hotel of Justice and Com-
passion.” From the day of their leaving Koko-
Khoton, they had not seen the interior of a habited
house. They were here in comparative comfort,
and their host was a communicative person, from
whom they obtained much intelligence as to their
future* route. After two days’ rest, the travellers
jiroceedcd, and crossed the Great Wall, which sur-
mounted the rising ground beyond the river. It
was here a barrier of little strength and rough
workmanship. Works of irrigation, and other evi-
dences of Chinese skill and enterprise, were ap-
parent on their line of march ; and the contrast of
the province of Kan-sou with the arid desert of
the Ortoos was remarkable. The first halt in Kan-
sou was at Wang-ho-po, where they fell in with a
Chinese caravan, bound like themselves to Ning-
Hia. On the road to this last city, they found
guard-houses at every half league, consisting of
square towers, built for the protection of travel-
lers. Arrived at Ning-Hia, a demand was made

66

TIBET, TARTARY

for passports by three pretended public officers,
for purposes of extortion. In the night, their
camels made free with some fresh oziers on a cart
within reach of their long necks. A tumult arose
in consequence, which ended in a demand upon
the missionaries to make good the damage. But
a jury of bystanders, a tribunal always available
in China, adjudged the reparation to be made by
the hotel-keeper, as he had been forewarned. Re-
sistance to anything unjust or unreasonable is al-
ways the best course even for strangers.

Ning-Hia is a city of the first rank, but it be-
trayed unmistakeable signs of decadence. A mag-
nificent road carried them to Hia-ho-po, at the
hotel of which, named the Hotel of Five Feli-
cities,” a white-buttoned official impudently re-
quired them to make way for his master, a manda-
rin of high rank, with a large suite. But here also
the travellers stood on their right, as being the first
arrived, and thus shared fairly the accommodation.
Two more days carried them to Chong- Wei, a for-
tified town on the banks of the Yellow River, which
contrasted favourably with the misery of Ning-Hia;
but to their wonder, the river was here without
boats. At Chong-Wei, the Great Wall was again
passed, and the travellers found themselves once
more amid the sandy mountains of Alishan, show-

AND MONGOLIA.

67

ing no signs anywhere of vegetation, and moving
with every breath of wind. It is from these sands
that the Yellow River acquires the tint whence it
derives its name. The camels sank in the loose
sand to their knees at evefy step, and the travel-
lers were compelled to dismount, in order to pur-
sue their laborious journey. These sands seem to be
blown uj) by the western winds of the great Shamo
desert, and are piled up in hills on the bank"' of
the river, but are there arrested. An oasis in the
middle of these sands, called Chang Lieon-Choui
(Ever Flowing Waters), was their next resting-
place, a delightful spot, where their only com-
plaint was of overcharge for their night’s accom-
modation. From this village, they followed for
some distance the high road to Hi, the penal settle-
ment of China in the extreme north-west. The
stations on this road are maintained by convicts,
whose banishment to Hi is remitted on the condi-
tion of their providing water and provisions to
public travellers, who else would find none. Along
this road they proceeded till they again crossed
the Great WaD, and soon after an interior barrier,
called that of San yen Tsin, at the resting-place
beyond which they were again importuned for
passports, as a plea for extortion, but again suc-
cessfully resisted. They were now in the province

68

TIBET, TARTARY

of Kan-Sou, a well cultivated wheat and pasture
country ; but they encountered here a dry tornado
of a most formidable character, which, if it had
fallen upon them while amid the sands of Alishan,
must infallibly have destroyed the whole party.
After a day’s rest at a respectable farm, they
reached Choang Long, or Ping-Fang, the hotel
of which was kept by a Chinese, who at once
asked them if they were not Ing-kilee (English).
This they denied, and a bystander relieved them
from the embarrassing question by saying, Don’t
you know that those English have all blue eyes
and red hair.” True,” said the master of the
hotel, I did not think of that ; besides those
Ing-kUee never leave the sea, and can’t ride, but
shake like little fish out of water when they mount
on horseback.” At this hotel they met a grand
Lama, who was a regenerated Boodh of the Khalkas
tribe, returning from Tibet. All but our travellers
prostrated themselves before him. The saints’
curiosity brought him, however, to terms of famili-
arity with them* notwithstanding this want of re-
spect, and he asked if they were Russians, or Eng-
lish (Peling)* from the Ganges and Calcutta. He
had travelled between Tibet and the country of

* Feling is the Tibetan corruption of the word Feringi, itself
a corruption of Frank, the Oriental word for European.

AND MONGOLIA.

69

the Khalkas more than once, and had there heard
of these two nations, but he knew nothing of
France.

The next stage, after leaving Choang-Long, was
Ho Kiac-y, which also has another name, Tai-tong-
Fou, which is less used. Here they put up at the
hotel of Temperate Climates,’’ where they rested
for eight days for the sake of their cattle, whose
backs were chafed by the long travel. Being near
the country of their Chiaour servant, Sambda
Chambda, they gave him leave to visit his family,
which he found in much distress, and relieved at
the expense of his own wardrobe. Leaving Ho-
Kiao-y, they crossed a high range called Ping-Kiou,
the summit of which they reached only at mid-day,
beginning the ascent at sunrise. It snowed as they
passed ; but in the descent on the other side, they
felt inconvenienced from the heat. The pathway
was so [steep, as to compel the travellers to dis-
mount ; and one of their camels twice rolled over,
but without suffering much injury. There is coal
in this range of hills : much of it was met under
conveyance to the river on bullocks, mules, and
other animals. On the further side of the Ping-
Kiou range they came to a village of stocking-
knitters, called Lao-Ya-Pou, five days’ journey
beyond which is the city of Sining-Fou, situated

70

TIBET, TARTARY

in a well cultivated country, abounding in tobacco ;
but the road of the last day was amid rocks, and
along the line of a torrent presenting many dan-
gers. The route of the missionaries Grueber and
Dorville fell in here with that of our travellers, but
they had come across China proper by Singanfoo.
At Sining, strangers are not received into the
hotels ; but there are separate lodging-houses,
called Sie-Kia, where they are boarded as well
as lodged for nothing, the keepers of the houses
drawing their profit from the agency of purchases
and sales for these strangers, which is proportion-
ately extortionate. The missionaries having con-
tributed nothing in this way, paid for their accom-
modation. The route after this was rocky, and
crossed several torrents, and the Great Wall was
passed twice before they reached Tong-Keou-ool,
a small but thriving commercial town, in the valley
of the Koko-noor, full of inhabitants of all races,
from all quarters, and speaking all languages. The
missionaries were here also received at a free
lodging-house, kept by a Mussulman. It was now
the month of January, and consultation was held
upon their fiirther proceedings. To pass the moun-
tains into Tibet at this season was full of hardships,
and dangerous in many respects. Yet they could
not think of abandoning the object of their long

AND MONGOLIA.

71

journey, and in summer, the torrents and melting
snows would present even greater difficulties. After
a stay of six days, while they were yet deliberating,
a party of Khalkhas Tartars arrived on their way
from Grand Kouren (Oorga) to Lassa, to do ho-
mage to a new Geesoo Tamba, declared to be rege-
nerated in a family of that country. There were
but eight men of the party, but each had more
than one horse, besides forty camels for the bag-
gage of the whole.

The missionaries rejoiced at first in the oppor-
tunity of continuing their journey in such com-
pany, but upon enquiring they gave up the idea,
finding that these Tartars travelled fifty or sixty
miles a-day, which, with their own small supply of
cattle, was impossible, and they had not the money
to purchase more. These Tartars were all nobles
of the royal race, and were visited by the young
prince of the Koko-noor Valley, who advised the
missionaries to wait for the return, in spring, of
the Tibetan mission, then at Pekin, which advice
they determined to follow. At eleven leagues dis-
tance from Tang-Kiou-ool, in the Sifan pasture
district, and not far ftom the lake of Koko-noor,
is the famous monastery of Koon-boom, contain-
ing near four thousand Lamas of all nations.
Thither M. Gabet went to seek a Lama preceptor

72

TIBET, TART ARY

to teach them Tibetan, while they waited for the
caravan of the mission then at Pekin. He found
and engaged a cousin of their servant Sambda
Chamba, a Chiaour Lama, named Sandara, thirty-
two years of age, who had lived for ten years in a
Lamaserai of Lassa, and who understood most of
the languages of China. He was extremely in-
telligent, and had passed through strange adven-
tures, having at one time been an actor in a
travelling Chinese company ; but he was cunning,
and not the best tempered of preceptors ; How-
ever, he was most useful in the menage, and
arranged for their removal to the Koon-boom
monastery at the begining of the Chinese year,
after about a month’s residence at Tang-Kiou-ool.
At Koon-boom they obtained lodgings from a
generous priest, whose liberality had ruined him,
and who could take no rent consistently with the
rules of his order. Opposite to them, in the same
court, lived a niggardly Chinese Lama, of great
reputed wealth. On one side was a medical prac-
titioner, who stuttered to a degree almost destroy-
ing his respiration when he attempted to speak, a
defect which the Chinese Lama’s apprentice took
mischievous delight in mimicking. These neigh-
bours and their host they met daily in the court,
but very seldom visited or received each other in

AND MONGOLIA.

7S

their apartments. The Lamaserai of Koon-booin»
witli its 4,000 Lamas, covers the two sides of a
mountain ravine, and consists of a number of white
mansions built upon cither side, with Boodhist
temples interspersed. At every step you meet
Lamas with yellow mitre-shaped caps, and red
cloalvs, walking gravely, as though absorbed in
thought. At the time of the arrival of the mission-
aries, they were preparing for the feast of flowcr<.
which was expected this year to be held with un-
usueflf magnificence. On the 15th of the first
month of the year this festival recurs ; bui in lieu
of flowers, there arc figures of all kinds prepared
of frozen butter, which twenty chosen Lamas work
upon for weeks before, wetting their hands in cold
water to prevent the butter from being mclt('d as
they model. Strangers from all quarters flock to
the festival, and the missionaries were most agret'-
ably surprised by the exliibition. The accuracy
with which the features and dress of all types of
the human race were represented in bas relief,
especially the skin-dress of many, exceeded any-
thing they had yet seen in art, and all this was in
butter, destroyed and cast into the ravine, to be-
come food for crows, the day after the festival.
While the missionaries were examining these dis-
plays of art, the Grand Lama of Koon-boom came

E

74

TIBET, TARTARY

with much ceromony and state to sec the festival ;
he was a very ordinary-looking person of forty
years of age, but his costume struck them as cor-
responding exactly with that of their own bishops,
even to the violet chape.

The Koon-boom monastery is situated in the
Amdo district, south of Koko-noor, and is sur-
rounded by barren red and yellow mountains.
It is the birth-place of Tsong-Kaba, whose name is
spelt by Csoma Korosi, Tson-Kha-pa and of^hose
miraculous conception and infancy strange legends
are current. He was bom a.d. 1347, and, devot-
ing himself when quite young to a life of jirivation
and abstract study, became, according to these
legends, the pupil of a stranger of the west, de-
scribed as of great learning, and of peculiar phy-
siognomy, being remarkable for the length of his
nose. This stranger, after teaching all his learn-
ing to Tson-Kha-pa, laid himself down on the
top of a mountain and slept the sleep of death,
never to awake, being very probably frozen to
death. Upon this Tson-Kha-pa, resolved to travel
and went first south into Yunan, whence he made
his way after a time to Lassa. There a superna-
tural injunction bade him fix his residence. He
accordingly preached his new doctrine there, and
introduced new prayers and forms of ritual, and

AND MONGOLIA.

75

gained many converts. His sect were distinguished
by yellow capes^ — red being the former colour.
Gaining ultimately the ascendant, Tson-Kha-pa
founded the Kaldan monastery, nine miles from
Lassa, in a.d. 1409, being then sixty-two years old.
This monastery still exists, and numbers more than
8,000 Lamas. In 1419, the reforming saint quitted
this world for the celestial. Tson-Kha-pa, besides
reforming the ritual, revised and published a new
version of the doctrinal scriptures of Sakhya-Muni,
the great founder of the religion, under the name of
the graduated road of perfection.^’ The mission-
aries saw reason, in the conformity of ritual, as well
as of costume, especially in this sect of Lamas, for
believing that the preceptor of Tson-Kha-pa must
have been a stray member of the Romish Church,
who found his way into these regions a century
after Rubruquis and Marco Polo. His doctrine
and ritual are now the prevailing forms of worship
in all Tibet, Mongolia and Tartary, and have been
adopted in many Chinese monasteries. That of
Koon-boom was built some time after his decease
at his birthplace, and there is a miraculous tree
shown, which is said to have grown on the spot
where his hair was shorn on his becoming a Lama,
on every leaf of which tree there is a letter of the
Tibetan alphabet distinctly marked. The mission-

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76

TIBET, TARTARY

arics saw the tree. It was old, with a stem that
three men could scarcely circle in the girth, but
was not more than eight feet high ; the Tibetan
letters were well formed, and seemed engrained in
the leaf as it grew. They testify to the miracle,
but could not at all account for it. We presume
the letters to be written upon the young leaves
with some substance that affects their growth and
texture, and so remains indelible. The tree, they
say, is of a species that no one has seen else-
where. The Emperor Kang-hi, when he made a
pilgrimage to Koon-boom, covered the tree with
a silver dome, and gave an endoTvonent for the
perpetual . support of three hundred and fifty
Lamas, which the monastery still enjoys. The
missionaries speak highly of its discipline and
management, and testify to its well-merited cele-
brity as an university for the instruction of Lamas.
There are four great classes, with separate pro-
fessors for each. First and highest, the faculty of
mystical doctrines, and of the life of contempla-
tion which leads to sanctification ; Second, the
faculty of the liturgy, including the study of all
religious ceremonies ; Third, the faculty of medi-
cine, including botany and pharmacy ; Fourth, the
faculty of prayer, which is obligatory on all, and
consequently is the best filled. There are thirteen

AND MONGOLIA.

77

classes in this branch of study only, the books of
prayer being most numerous, and very voluminous,
and the students being graduated according to
their progress in these books. No one is advanced
for ago or length of study ; very young persons,
even boys, take often the very highest places in
the hierarchy. The jdace is given after strict
examination, but a handsome present to the insti-
tution, or to the examiners, mitigates much of its
severity. The lectxircs are given at all seasons in
the open air, and the lessons having been recited,
one of the pupils is called upon generally to main-
tain a thesis upon any subject. He must answer
all opponents, and if victorious, is carried round
the school-yard on the shoulders of the van-
quished. The whole disputation is conducted in
the Tibetan language, no other being taught or
admitted in the schools. Discipline and attention
are strictly enforced by censors, who carry iron rods
with which they punish summarily any delin-
quents. The proctors and their bull-dogs are dis-
tinguished by a grey dress and black mitre. They
have great power in the streets of the town, as
well as in the courts of the monastery, and there
are Lama judges for more serious offences. For
any petty theft, the culprit is marked on the fore-
head and cheek by a hot iron, and expelled.

78

TIBET, TAUT ARY

Our two missionaries, with the aid of their pre-
ceptor Sandara,” prepared a Tibetan abstract of
the Scriptures, and a summary of the principal
doctrines of their own faith. The report of their
emplopnent spread in the monastery, and excited
many anxious enquiries ; so much so, that they
began to hope for extensive success in winning
converts to their faith ; but their preceptor was
a confirmed sceptic. The stuttering student of
medicine was much better disposed, though full
of superstitions. He proposed to them one day,
to assist in a charitable ceremony for the benefit
of lost and forlorn travellers. It consisted of the
very simple process of stamping the figure of a
horse, caparisoned, on little pieces of light paper,
and giving these to the strong winds on a moun-
tain top, with certain prayers. The young student
had the most perfect faith that many a poor
wanderer would be relieved by this charitable
sending of horses in all quarters.

The missionaries had resided three months at
Koon-boom, when they received a civil message,
that the time had expired when they could live as
stranger guests, dressing and comporting them-
selves as they pleased. If they remained longer,
they must wear the mitre and costume of the
monastery, and matriculate. They objected on

AND MONGOLIA.

79

the score of religious scruples, and were accord-
ingly advised to remove to a less strict monastery
at Chogortan, especially devoted to medical stu-
dents. This advice they readily followed, and had
no reason to repent the change of their residence.
Before taking leave of Koon-boom, M. Hue de-
votes a chapter to the precepts of Boodh, anS to
the introduction of this religion into China. What
he cites, and the facts he mentions, are curious
and highly interesting ; but through the writings
of the late Mr. Csoma Korosi, and Mr. G. Turnour
of Ceylon, we have much more full details on the
subject or this religion, derived directly from
Tibetan and Pali sources.

The Chinese give the year, b. c. 1029, as the
date of the birth of Sakhya-Muni, or Boodh,
and the year, b.c. 951, for that of his death ; but
they admit that the religion was not introduced
into China until 1,000 years later. They state the
book of the Forty-two Precepts, from which the
missionaries give extracts, to have been translated
into the language of China, in the year a.d. 68. A
comparison of many epochs has established in India
the date, b.c. 628, for the year of the birth of
Boodh; and b.c. 543, for that of his decease. We
ask not for him greater antiquity than this, but
shall reserve the examination of this question, and

80 TIBET, TAKTARY

especially the discussion of the claim of the Bood-
hist sacred books to greater antiquity than our
own, until we have carried our missionaries to
their journey’s end.

The climate in the elevated region of the Koko-
noo^ wherein the missionaries made this long
sojourn, is so severe, that snow falls nearly through-
out the year, though the latitude is only 30° north.
In July, however, there is a sudden change, and
vegetation proceeds as if the earth were in a state
of fermentation. The mountains are suddenly
covered with verdure, and flowers shoAv their
bright colours on all sides. At this season the
camels of our travellers lost their long hair, and
were for some days quite uncomfortable, but it
grew fast again, and the coat thus shed proved a
valuable acquisition, being converted into cords
for fastening the loads. Chogortan is the Rich-
mond, or the Brighton, to which the Lamas of
Koon-boom resort for recreation in summer ; and
here especially came, at this season, the whole fa-
culty of medicine, to collect simples for their
pharmacy. In the plains round about were rich
pastures, from which the monastery was sujqflicd
with argols for winter fuel. The missionaries have
a special dissertation in this place, ujDon the merit
of the argol of different animals ; that of goats and

AND MONGOLIA.

81

sheep stands in the first class; camels in the second;
kine of all kinds in the third ; horses, and animals
of that genus, in the last, because the dung of
these animals burns too quick, and gives a dis-
agreeable smoke.

The Chogortan Valley, in consequence of its
favoured pasture-grounds, is subject to the attacks
ol* brigands, not plundering as individuals, but in
organized bodies and tribes. The Lamas of Koon-
boom take to arms immediately on.hearing of tln^
approach of these banditti, but not with any el‘-
f(‘ctive organization, so that the valley is some-
times swept before any succour can arrive ; and
the missionaries were witness to the confusion re-
sulting from an incursion of this kind during th(‘ir
stay.

It was the end of Scj>tember, 1845, before the
Tibetan mission made its appearance in the valhy
of the Koko-noor, on its return to Lassa from
Pekin. Immediately, on hearing of its approach,
our travellers made their preparations so as to be*
ready to accompany the caravan. The supplies
they laid in were, three bricks of tea, two shecqi’s
stomachs of butter, two sacks of flour, and eigl^
sacks of Tsamba, that is, of roasted barli*y meal,
to be mixed with the tea, which is the universal
food of Tibetans, without being satisfied with

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82

TIBET, TARTARY

which, there is no passing by this route into
Tibet. The above supplies were for the two
missionaries, with two servants, four camels, two
horses and a mule, a condition of baggage and
commissariat for such an expedition, that would
vsatisfy even Sir Charles Napier. A good supply
of garlic, a specific recommended by the pcoj^le
of the country to prevent ill consequences from
bad atmosphere and nauseous vapours, was the
only further ai;ticlc provided. For the conveyance
of these extra supplies a horse and camel were
added to the original establishment with which
the missionaries had reached Koon-boom, and a
young liama was hired as helpmate to Sambda
Chamba, in tending the cattle.

With this preparation, the missionaries made a
march of four days to meet the Tibetan mission
on the banks of the Koko-noor lake or rather
inland sea. They passed on their way to the lake
the Lamaserai of Tansan, having about 200 Lamas,
and found magnificent pastures on the plains
near the lake. These travellers are the first Euro-
peans from whom we have any trustworthy notice
^f this lake from personal examination. They de-
scribe it as about one hundred leagues in circum -
ferenre, and as salt as the ocean. They state it
also to be subject to some kind of tide, but this

AND MONGOLIA.

83

we think must be a mistake. Towards the south
end of the lake there is a rocky island^ where a
few Lamas have established a temple with some
huts for residences. There is no communication
with them except in winter over the ice, for on
the whole lake there is not a single boat. The
Lamas, however, are liberally supplied in that
season by the shepherds. There are twenty-nine
banners of subject princes who divide the pasture-
plains of Koko-noor amongst them, paying tribute
to China. The plundering tribes are Eastern
Tibetans, of the Sifan race, who live in the Bayen
Khar at mountains, near the sources of the Yellow
River. They are called Kolo, and are Boodhists,
but have added to their mythology a special God
of plunder.

The missionaries remained near a month on the
banks of the Koko-noor, waiting for the Tibetan
envoy’s caravan from Pekin. It arrived towards
the end of October. It used to be the custom for
the Tibetan mission to travel yearly to Pekin, but
in 1840 the caravan was attacked by the Kolo
robbers, whom they beat off, but found next day
that the Chanak-Kampo, or Ijama ambassadoi:, had
disappeared in the night attack, whether slain or
not, was never thoroughly ascertained. Again, in
1841, a second officer of the same rank received

84

TIBET, TARTAR Y

a severe wound, of which he died shortly after. In
consequence of these casualties, the Emperor made
the mission triennial, instead of annual, and it
was the return of that of 1844 that formed the
present caravan. It consisted, by our traveller’s
estifiiatc, of 15,000. yaks, 12,000 horses, and as
many camels, and about 2,000 human beings of
whom all the mounted were well armed. The
Chanak-Kampo rode in a litter carried by two
mules ; and the caravan had an escort of 300
Chinese soldiers, from the province of Kansou,
and 200 mounted Tartars, who were to conduct it
to the frontier of Tibet, but no further. Th(‘
caravan generally started three hours before sun-
rise, so as to come to the new ground by noon,
and so afford the cattle grazing time ; two guns
gave the signal of preparation and departure, and
the march was a general move without much
order. After a journey of six days, the Pouhain-
Gol, a river that falls into the Koko-noor, had to
be crossed ; it ran in twelve channels, not very
deep, but the frozen edges made the passage diffi-
cult and disagreeable.

Our travellers made acquaintance, in this
journey j with three Lamas, who had travelled over
the whole of Mongolia, to collect subscriptions for
the erection of a grand temple near Lassa. They

AJNJ) MO^GOJ^IA.

Ho

had been eminently successful, and were bringing
back means sufficient for their grand design, but
at Koon-boom were overtaken by an order from
Pekin, and the principal emissary was sent on to
Lassa for trial, on the charge of fraud and forgery,
and his treasure was placed at the disposal of th(?
Delai T.ama to abide the result. Five days’ march
boyojul the Poiihain-Gol, the caravan came to
a small river, on the otlier side of which was a
deserted Lamaserai, which had been besieged and
ravaged by the terrible Kolo plunderers. Here
thi' Chinese escort left them. On the 15th No-
vember, they entered the Tsaidam district, oc-
cupi('d by Mongols, and crossed the river of that
name. The soil is dry and rocky, and produces
borax, which is collected in pits, where it crys-
tallizes i‘re(‘ly. On the further side of this valley
Avas the dreaded Boorhan-boota Mountain. On
the eastern and northern side of this range the air
is so impregnated with carbonic-acid gas, that
unless there is a wdnd to sweep it otf, animals can
scarcely pass without suffocation. It is like the
valley of the Upas, in Java, which is fatal from a
similar cause. Our travellers passing at a time of
calm, experienced severely the effects of the cor-
rupted atmosphere. But this difficulty was trivial
in comparison with the passage of the Chuga

86

TIBET, TARTARY

mountains some days after. The ascent from the
north-east was easy, but the summit was no
sooner reached than a wind met them in the face,
in the midst of deep snow, that made the descent
dangerous in the highest degree. They could not
venture to face this wind, and sat with their faces
to the horses tails. Monsieur Gabet reached the
bottom with his nose and cars frozen, and suffered
so severely in other respects, that his recovery was
at one time despaired of. At the halting-place
they had to scrape away the snow in search of
argol fuel, to make a miserable fire, the heat of
which was insufficient to boil their tea.

The miseries of a Tibetan journey had now fairly
commenced ; all the travellers marched in mourn-
ful silence amid snows that proved every clay fatal
to many of the cattle, and the road was strewed
with the bones of men as well as of animals, to
remind them of the perils by which they were sur-
rounded. Monsieur Gabet fell sick, to a degree
that made him quite helpless, in consequence of
his sufferings in the passage of the Chuga ; yet
there were still two months of journey before them
to Lassa, and no possibility of halt, no comforts,
no medicines. In the beginning of December,
they reached the famous Bayen Xharat chain of
mountains, which stretches, from south-east to

\ND MONGOLIA.

north-west, between the Hoang-Ho andKin-Cha-
Kiang rivers. They were now close to the sources
of the former, which lay two day’s journey to
the East, but could not be visited. Here they held
council how best to effect the passage of the dividing
range. It lay before them, covered with deep fresh
snow. The day was calm, but much of it had passed
when they reached the foot of the ridge. On the
other hand, there was a probability of a wind arising
by the morrow, which would be fatal in the then
condition of the snow. The caravan was divided in
opinion ; but oiu* travellers were of the party for
procL"eding,and they scrambled over the fresh snow
without accident. Luckily, the next day also was
fine, and those who had stopped came over likewise,
without any one being lost in an avalanche or a
snow-wreath, which was looked upon as extreme
good fortune. They rested on the side of a frozen
lake, depending on the argols of previous caravans
for fuel, and moved, next day, to the bank of the
Mouroui-Oossoo, the name here given to the river
called below the Kin-Cha-Kiang, and in the plains
of China, the mighty Yang-Tse-Kiang, or Blue
River. They passed it over ice, and witnessed a
strange spectacle in the passage. A string of more
than fifty wild yaks had been frozen up at the very
moment of swinmiing across, and remained there

88

TIBET, TARTARY

fixed in death, their eyes having been pecked out
by crows and eagles. Wild yaks and wild asses
are common in the most elevated regions of Tibet,
and are seen wandering in herds, seeking fresh
pastures.

The caravan here separated, the camels prc’-
ceding, because capable of making longer marches,
and of moving more rapidly than the loaded
yaks. By a gradual further ascent, our travel-
lers now reached, at last, the dividing land be-
tween the waters of China and Tibet, the highest
(derated region, perhaps, in the whole world. It
was mid- winter, and for fifteen days the wind blew
over the plain with murderous severity. During tin*
whole of this time the cold was so intense, that
though they wore flannel shirts, and over tliat a
coat of fox-skin, and over that a lamb-skin jacket
or spencer, and a large cloak of sheep-skin over all,
and carried their Tsamba paste for refreshment cm
the day’s journey next to their skin, yet they iicwr
took it out to eat, during the march in this elevatc'd
region, without finding it frozen. It is wonderful
that the human frame should endure this conse-
cutively for days together. The cattle required to
be enveloped in felt wrapers, but were neverthe-
less decimated in the terrible march. And here
we must be permitted to complain of our travelh'i s

A>'D MONGOMA.

89

for starting on such a journey without even a com-
pass, a barometer, or a thermometer. A solar
microscope it seems they had with them, but a
compass to give the bearings of remarkable peaks,
and a thermometer to show the degree of cold, and
the boiling point of water, would have given scien-
tific results of the highest possible interest and
value. Lieutenant Strachey, the officer of the
Indian government, who wintered at Ladaq, and
penetrated in the spring and summer of 1848, to
the sources of the Shayek, and to the Pangong
Salt Lak(', in order to determine the boundary of
the Chinese territory towards the Indus, crossed
several passes of 18,000 and 19,000 feet of well
ascer tained height ; and we expect shortly from the
brother of this officer some curious scientific par-
ticulars, the result of a careful survey and exami-
nation of a considerable area of territory at the
sources of the Sutlej. These French missionaries
give us no means of comparing observations made
at the sources of the great rivers of China, with
those of th<\sc western explorers, and we may wait
long for another journey into the regions crossed
by the perilous route we are here tracing.

More than forty men of the caravfin were left on
the road frozen during the fifteen days of painful
march over this table-land, and no one could stop

90

TIBET, TART ARY

to relieve, or even to bury, those overtaken by the
frost. M. Gabet*8 illness and suiFerings increased
to such a degree at this period of the journey, that
he could neither ride nor walk; he was conse-
quently sewed up in his cloaks and blankets, and
so carried, like a bale of goods, on a camel. But
he recovered when the extreme cold was somewhjft
mitigated, and the cutting wind had ceased. In
the midst of this march, the travellers fell in with
a party of Kolo brigands, who, however, showed
great respect for the Lamas of the west, and de-
clared that they had no wish to plunder what the
caravan was carrying back to the Delai Lama; but
would never sulfer the wealth of Tibet to be carried
to Pekin, in order to be laid at the feet of a Chinese
emperor. Soon after this rencontre, the caravan
approached the Tant-La* pass, the siunmit of which
they reached, after six days of continual further
ascent. At the top was another table-land, along
which they travelled for twelve days ; but the wind
had ceased to blow, and the sun was now radiant
and reviving, and M. Gabet recovered wonderfully
under its influence. After thus crossing this high
dividing ridge of Tartary, the descent was from

* Throughout Tibet, as far west as Ladaq, a mountainous pass
is called La. This is the first on the road from Pekin to Laesa,
that bears this name. It is in evidence of the commencement of
the use of the Tibetan language as the vernacular.

AND MONGOLIA.

91

mountain to mountain, in steps each day of reduced
elevation. In the valleys, hot springs were very
frequent. After some days of rough travel, the
missionaries reached a plain of good pasture, where
they gave their worn-out cattle a halt of two days,
du/Ing which shepherds brought them fresh meat,
a luxury they purchased with such articles of
Pekin manufacture as they could spare ; but just
as they were on the point of sitting down to a lux-
urious meal of roasted mutton, so procured, the
cry of fire ! fire! arose, and they found that some
injudicious members of the caravan had ignited
the grass to windward, and the flames were coming
down fast upon their encampment. The tents
were saved with extreme difficulty, but the long-
haired camels would not move out of the way of
the flames, and one of them was so dreadfully
burnt as to be rendered quite unserviceable. Fol-
lowing down a valley, the travellers came now to
the first Tibetan viDage, called Na-Pchu, or
Kara-oossoo, both meaning, one in Tibetan, and
the other in Mongolian, Black Waters. The vil-
lage is inhabited by Tartar shepherds. The mis-
sionaries sold here their three serviceable camels
for fifteen ounces of silver, and gave the poor burnt
one into the bargain. With this money they pur-
chased six yaks, to convey their baggage to

93

TIBET, TARTARY

Lassa, and the assistant camel-driver, who had
proved a great rogue, was discharged. The thieves
of Na-Pchu are described as expert and most au-
dacious.

There were yet fifteen days of march from this
village to Lassa. Our missionaries travelled the
remainder of their journey in company with some
Mongols of Kharchin, who along with a regene-
rated Boodh were on pilgrimage to the holy city.
The Chaberon, so these sainted hierarchs are called,
was a young man of eighteen, and was proceeding
to graduate and study in one of the Lamaserais of
Lassa. A prince and several nobles of Kharchin
accompanied him, and he was watched, rather
than attended, by two aides-de-camp, who per-
mitted him no recreation, but compelled him always
to sit in state, and act and talk the rcgeneratc'd
Boodh — a miserable state of existence ! He was,
however, allowed to visit and converse with our
Lamas of the West, and is described as an intelli-
gent well-disposed youth, who enjoyed much the
privilege of holding rational converse.

The route between Na-Pchu and Lassa, is de-
scribed as rocky, fatiguing and difficult, and some-
times even highly dangerous, but the caravan was
approaching civilization, and everything seemed
now to smile*. The passage of the Koiran range of

AND MONGOLIA.

93

mountains presented most difficulty. On the fif-
teenth day from Na-Pchu, they reached Pampoo,
called on maps Panctou, a valley interspersed with
farm-houses, on the banks of a considerable river-
Here they had again to change their carriage
cattle, and provide asses in place of their yaks.
The cold had sadly disfigured their bearded coun-
tenances ; but they did their best, with their limited
wardrobe and means, to make a respectable ap-
pearance on their arrival a^Lassa. Asses having
been provided, after some delay, in suffident abun-
dance for the whole party, the missionaries, with
their Mongol associates, scaled the high mountain
range, which still lay between them and Lassa,
called the Boodha-La, and so reached the city at
last on the J29th January, 1846, eighteen months
after their start from the Valley of Black Waters
in Mongolia.

The houses of Lassa are described as large,
and are fresh whitewashed and painted every year,
so as to present a gay appearance, but within they
are filthy in the extreme, cleanliness being no cha-
racteristic of a Tibetan or Tartar. They found a
lodging at Lassa, in a house of entertainment,
where there were fifty other lodgers, and hired an
upper room, to which they were compelled to
mount by a ladder of twenty-six steps. It had

94

TIBET, TARTARY

for chimney a hole in the roof — not a comfort-
able substitute in the depth of winter ; but even
this was preferable to retaining the smoke of the
argol fuel in the room ftiey inhabited, which those
below were compelled to submit to. The city of
Lassa has no wall, but is surrounded by garden
suburbs. The streets arc broad, well laid out,
and clean enough, but the suburbs arc filthy in
the extreme. There is one quarter, however, the
houses of which are d^cribed as most picturesque,
the walls being built of the horns of cattle and
sheep, intermixed with infinity of designs, and
cemented together with mortar between. We cite
this description of Lassa, because the city has
never, that wc know, been yet •described by any
European traveller. Mr. Manning, who went there
from Calcutta, in 1811, intending to penetrate
into China by that route, was seized and sent back,
and saw very little of the place ; and his Chinese
companion, being handed over to Chinese courts
of justice, was never afterwards heard of.
Mr. Manning went then by sea to Cjinton, and died
there, without giving to the world any result of
his travels and researches.

The French missionaries were assured by Ti-
betans that Mr. Moorcroft had also been at Lassa,
and a Kashmerian merchant introduced to them

AND MONGOLIA.

95

Moosulman nam ed Nishan, who declared him-
self to have been Mr. Moorcroft’s servant, and to
have accompanied him in tours of exploration
made in different directioils, in quality of a Ma-
hommedan cattle merchant, speaking Persian. We
know that Moorcroft died of fever caught in
Koonclooz ; this person must, therefore, have been
one of his companions, who assumed his name.
The traveller, whoever he was, is said to have been
murdered by robbers in the -Gnari province, near
the sources of the Indus. No intelligence cor-
responding with these particulars has ever reached
any British officer ; and on the other hand, there
has been much exploration lately in the direction
of Gnari, and the Chinese frontier in that quarter
has been laid down by Lieutenant Strachey, before
alluded to ; so that such an event, if it were
really true, could scarcely have escaped them.
We must admit, however, that the motives for
concealment were of the strongest on the part of
the Chinese frontier officers.

The palace of the Delai Lama at Lassa, called
the Lassa Morou, is built on an isolated rocky
hiU, at a short distance to the north of the city.
It is of stone, and of large dimensions, with a
high gilt dome, exhibiting, say our travellers,
much architectural beauty. We presume the

96

TIBET, TART ARY

style and character of the edifice not to be very
different from those described, and of which we
have diawings, in Turner’s Embassy to Tibet.
Round the palace are a multitude of Lamas’ edi-
fices of all sizes. The Delai Lama is the Pope
of Tibet ; but as he is supposed to be always in
the state of abstract meditation for the ‘benefit
of mankind, his temporal authority is exercised
through a deputy, called the Nome-Klian, who is
also a sanctified Lama, enjoying the relative posi-
tion towards the hierarch of a Romish cardinal.
About two hundred years ago, the women of
Tibet, being much given to dress and libertinage,
corrupted the Lamas to a degree to bring their
holy order into bad repute. The then Nome- Khan
accordingly issued an edict, that the women should
never aj^pear in public ^vithout first smearing their
faces with a black disfiguring paste. Strange to
say, this order was obeyed, and the practice is
still observed, but without much benefit to morals.
Father Grueber notices this habit of smearing the
face to have prevailed in his time, which was one
hundred and eighty years before the visit of our
travellers. The women are described as active,
industrious, and managing persons, like those of
France, and not at all likely to be content with
the place assigned to women in the social system

A^^D MONGOLIA.

97

of India and of Western Asia, nor do they submit
to seraglio discipline.

The position of the Chinese at Lassa is peculiar.
In the beginning of the eighteenth century Tibet
was conquered by the Sifan Tartars, who though
Boodhists, and therefore in spiritual matters sub-
ject to the great Lamas, ruled nevertheless with
great cruelty and were hateful as an intrusive
race.

The Tibetans looked to China for the means of
expelling them, and in 1720 the Emperor Kanghi
sent a force into Tibet, which being favoured by
the native population, overpowered and drove out
the Sifans. Kanghi then established four Tibetan
chiefs as temporal sovereigns, but, as we have be-
fore mentioned, they quarrelled, and one of them,
named Pholonai, prevailing over the rest, was
recognised at first by the court of Pekin as a
Tai-tse and afterwards as a Kiun-wang. On his
death his son Ghiur-medh Namghial succeeded
to the same title and authority ; but in 1T60 he re-
volted, and, asserting independence, was beheaded
by the emperor^s order, whereupon the temporal
sovereignty was extinguished, and the Delai Lama
was vested with both authorities. The Emperor
Kanghi professed always great veneration for the
two great Lamas of Tibet, and used their in-

98

TIBET, TARTARY

lluence on many occasions to settle differences
with the Mongol priesthood, who gave him much
trouble. He established at Lassa and Djachi two
envoys called kinchais, through whom his wishes
were expressed, and who were at first mere chan-
nels of communication with these Lamas ; but
when the temporal sovereignty was conferred on
the Delai Lama, these kinchais as his advisers
and the supporters of his power acquired much
influence, and this was greatly increased, after
the Nipalese had invaded Tibet, and a Chinese
army had been called in to repel and punish the
invaders. Military posts were then established as
well on the frontier of Tibet towards India, as on the
direct line of communication with China, and the
kinchais have from that time forward exercised the
same degree of authority in Tibet, that a British
resident possesses at the court of a protected chief
in India. In the thirty-fifth year of Kicn-long,
anno domini 1770, before Tibet was thus occupied
by Chinese troops, the two kinchais took upon
themselves to seize and behead a Nome-Khan dur-
ing a visit of ceremony. An emeute was the con-
sequence, which ended in the massacre of every
Chinese in Tibet. A long war, and the invasion
of Tibet by a Chinese army followed. The result
was to re-establish the Chinese kinchais at Lassa,

AND MONGOLIA.

99

with equal, if not superior, influence to that they
before enjoyed, and this was confirmed and much
augmented by the events of the war with Nipal,
which led to the establishment of military posts
at the most important points for the defence of the
country. Nevertheless, there are very few Chinese
troops in Tibet to support the influence and au-
thority the kinchais exercise. There is, indeed,
a line of guard-houses all the way between Lassa
and Se-chuen, for the purpose of keeping up the
communication, and another line of guard-houses,
with small garrisons, is established along the
Bootan and British frontiers. At Lassa, however,
the head-quarters of all these posts, there are only
a few hundred soldiers. These receive their pay
from China, and are relieved every third year.

The principal Chinese envoy at the time of the
arrival of our missionaries was, as we before said,
the well-known Ki-Shen, the great councillor of
state, who had been sent to negociate with the
British admiral, and with Captain Elliot, at the
commencement of the war with China in 1840.
The result of his negotiations was, it will be recol-
lected, a treaty or convention, containing a stipu-
lation for the cession in full sovereignty to the
British Queen of the island of Hong Kong. This
was a sine qud non of Lord Palmerston’s instruc-

F 2

100

TIBET, TARTARY

tions, and was agreed to most unwillingly by Ki-
Shen. When the treaty was sent to Pekin for
ratification, this article was looked upon there as
disgraceful, and the negotiator was recalled and
sentenced to confiscation, and at exile to Hi ; his
great credit at court and known talents alone
saved his head. The issue of the war which fol-
lowed having proved his superior wisdom, and the
affairs of Tibet requiring a man of vigour and
ability, Ki-Shen was partially restored to rank,
and appointed to the mission there. The case
forms a curious passage in that country’s history.

The Nome-Khan of Lassa is himself a Cha-
beron,” or regenerated Boodh, selected for the
office of civil administrator by the Delai Lama.
The Nome-Khan whom Ki-Shen found there had
been nominated long before, and in his time
three successive Delai Lamas had died very soon
after reaching the age of majority. This occa-
sioned great scandal, and it was openly said, that
all three events were the work of the Nome-
Khan. The first Delai Lama had died of stran-
gulation, the second was killed by the fall of the
roof of his bed-chamber, and the third was poi-
soned at a meal, along with several of his fami-
liars. Add to this, the chief Lama of the Kaldan

AND MONGOLIA.

101

monastery, close to Lassa, had died suddenly in
the same way.

The Nome-Khan was a Sifan noble of Yang-
Tou-See, consequently a subject of China. He
Avas rich, and by his liberality had obtained a
large following, the Lamas of the Sera mona-
stery especially being much devoted to him.
There are under the Nome-Khan four state offi-
cers, called Kalons. These combining, made a
secret representation to the court of Pekin of
the crimes and cruelties of the Nome-Khan ; and
it was in consequence of their representation, that
Ki-Shen was ordered from Hi to investigate and
redress these evils, and was vested with extra-
ordinary powers for the purpose. Upon his
arrival in Tibet, he paid court to the Bundshan-
Rembouchi,* the great Lama of Djachi Loomboo,
and to the four Kalons or ministers of the Nome-
Khan at Lassa. With their help he obtained
evidence to prove the charges of murder against
the Nome-Khan, Avho was accordingly brought to
trial, and on being confronted with the witnesses,
confessed his crimes, and signed the record which

* Turner calls this ofllcer the Punjin-Rembochay, M. Hue
says he claims equality with the Delai Lama. The place called
Teeshoo Lomboo, after Captain Turner, M. Hue calls Djachi
Loomboo, and translates, Mountain of oracles.’*

102

TIBET, TARTARY

contained the evidence of his guilt, together with
his accomplices’ confessions. It was counter-
signed by all the high officers of Tibet, including
the I^achi Lama, and the case was so sent to
Pekin for adjudication. Three months after-
wards, the imperial mandate arrived, sentencing
the Nome- Khan to exile on the banks of the
Sagalien in Manchoo Tartary. The sentence was
immediately placarded at Lassa, and the Nome-
Khan was placed in confinement. The Lamas of
the Sera monastery, however, to the number of
15,000, rose in insurrection, and gaining the
ascendancy at Lassa, released the Nome-Khan,
and wished to carry him back to his palace in
triumph. But he refused, saying he must make
the journey to Pekin, in order to explain the
case, and enlighten the emperor, for submission
was his duty. The Lamas of Sera were discon-
certed by this refusal, and returned at night to
their convent. In the meantime, Ki-Shen, who
had escaped the first violence of the insurgents,
concerted measures with the Kalons, and brought
next morning an armed force into the plain
between the monastery and Lassa, and so reduced
the rebellious Lamas to submission. The Nome-
Khan was dispatched a few days after in a palan-
quin, by the route of Se-Chouen, to the place of

AND MONGOI.IA.

103

his exile. The accomplices, however, were left
to the Kalon magistrates of Lassa, and were not
severely dealt with.

The selection of a new Nome-Khan fell on the
Chaberon, or regenerated Boodh-Lama, of Ran-
chan, a youth of only eighteen years of age.
The first Kalo^ was accordingly named regent,
and it was with him and Ki-Shen, that the mis-
sionaries had to deal in January and February
1846. What passed is curious, and deserves full
mention.

The missionaries reported themselves to the
authorities at Lassa, as Lamas of the west come
to enquire after, and to preach the truth. They
were immediately visited by an inquisitive Chi-
nese, who came to enquire what they had to sell.

Nothing,” they said, ^^but their old saddles.”
“ Exactly what I want,” said he ; and in bargain-
ing, asked multitudinous questions calculated to
elicit all particulars regarding the strange visitors
to the holy city.

Four similar visits of inquiry for merchandize
did the missionaries receive on the same day. It
was evident that these were all spies. At the
dinner hour they were summoned to the presence
of the Kalon, regent, along with their servant
Sambda-Chamba. On arriving at the palace, this

104 TIBET, TAKTARY

functionary surveyed them curiously for some time
without saying a word, whereupon they said to
one another in French: lie seems of good dis-
position, we shall fare well/^ Though said in a
whisper, they were immediately called upon to
repeat what they had said ; which they did aloud
in French. An appeal was then made to all pre-
sent, to know if any one understood the language.
The answer being in the negative, they were called
upon themselves to translate, which they did
faithfully into Tibetan. The regent was pleased
with the compliment, and made a long speech to
explain how it was his duty to be well disposed.
He then asked whence they came ; they said.

From the West.” From Calcutta?” he asked ;
they replied, No ; from France.” You are
assuredly Pelings ? ” (English) said the regent.

No ; we are French.” Can you write ? ” said
he. They said Yes ; ” whereupon ink and
paper were provided, and they were told to write
something in their own language. They wrote
" Que sert a Vhomnie de conquerir le monde entieVy
8*il vient a perdre son They were made to

write the translation of this in Tibetan, Mongolian
and Chinese, which they did, exciting the admira-
tion of the court at their learning and profound
doctrine. In the midst of this, Ki-Shen came to

AND MONGOLIA.

105

the palace, and the examination was renewed before
him in a different spirit. They saluted him in the
French form, without falling on their knees, merely
taking off their caps and bowing low. ’Tis well,”
he said, ^^you follow the customs of your country ;
they tell me you speak correctly the language of
Pekin ; let us converse in that.” The mission-
aries said, their language would be found faulty by
such a judge, but his intelligence would penetrate
the meaning. Pure Pekin!” he exclaimed, ‘‘you
French must have great facility in the acquisition
of languages.” “ Yes, we arc French.” “ I knew
some Frenchmen in old days in Pekin,” he said.
“You might also have seen some at Canton,”
they replied ; but the recollection was not agree-
able to their questioner, and he frowned. “ You
are Christians,” he said. “ Yes.” “ I knew it !
and you are here to propagate and spread your re-
ligious opinions.” “It is our only object.” “What
countries have you passed through? ” They named
China, Mongolia and Tibet. “ Who did you live
with in China ? ” They refused to answer this
question, even though threatened; but told freely
where they had learned the languages they knew.
“ And who are you ? ” he said, turning sharply
to Sambda-Chamba. “ A native of Ki-toi;-tse.”
“ Where is that?” “ In the district of San-Chouen,

F 3

106

TIBET, TARTARY

in the Kansou province.” “Ah! subject of the
central nation 1 down on your knees, before your
Emperor’s representative. On your knees ! ” he
repeated, and was instantly obeyed. “As a subject
of China, I am your judge ; say, where you met
these foreigners.” Sambda-Chamba replied frankly,
not denying that he was himself a convert to the
Christian faith ; which he could not believe to be
proscribed, because it enjoined him only to do
good, and to shun evil. “ True,” said the Com-
missri'oner, “but what induced you to enter the
service of these foreigners?” He denied that he
knew them to be foreigners, or otherwise than as
good men. What wages do they give ? ” He
said, “ None, but his board and lodging ; he was
with them for the sake of his soul, regarding them
as his spiritual teachers.” ^^Arc you married?”
“No ! I was a Lama, before joining them.” The
next question drew a blush from Sambda-Chamba;
he did not answer it. And the missionaries pro-
tested against such imputations, declaring the
thought or mention of such things to be equally
against their religion and their morals. At this
Ki-Shen felt reproved, and broke up the ex-
amination, saying it was late, and he should re-
quire^ to see them again next day. From this
examination they were carried again to the regent.

AND MONGOLIA.

107

who promised his support, gave them supper, and
questioned them several times over on the subject
of maps, and notes of their route. They told him
candidly, that tliey had a printed map of China
with them, by which they had been guided on
their journey. The regent heard this with some
anxiety, fearing it would give them trouble ; the
great dread of the Chinese beings exploration by
Europeans to ascertain the geography and re-
sources of their country. Rooms were prepared
for the missionaries this night in the palace, where
they were now, in fact, prisoners. They were
carefully waited upon, and found good beds pro-
vided ; they passed the night, however, in great
anxiety as to their future fate, and found a re-
source and comfort in prayer. Early the next
morning they were visited by the chief Kashmerian
merchant, who came to condole with them, and
to tell them to prepare next day for a close ex-
amination of their baggage. This was the work
of the Chinese Kinchai, he said, against the wishes
of the regent, but they must submit. AU these
precautions, he further told them, were the con-
sequences of Moorcroft’s explorations; amongst
whose effects, after he was murdered in Gnari,
the Chinese had found many maps and notes, illus-

108

TIBET, TARTARY

trative of the geography and resources of the
entire country.

Early next morning, the Tibetan regent made
the first examination of their baggage with all
forms, prior to sealing it up. A crucifix was the
first thing that engaged his attention, and he
laughed heartily, when the missionaries said, it
was with that that they had come to make the
conquest of Tibet. A careful list was made of
everything, to the most minute article, and the
whole baggage was then carried away under seal
to the court-house, where Ki-Shen was waiting.
Have you oidy these two trunks of baggage,” he
asked. Nothing else,” said they; ^^you may open
them and see what they contain.” ^‘Are they
mine,” said he, that I should open them, and
expose myself to your reproaches, if anything
should be found wanting ? open them yourselves.”
Everything was then laid out, and examined with
the utmost curiosity, by ail present. Amongst
the articles were some books and lithographic
drawings, which excited much admiration. Ki-
Shen took upon himself to explain the great
progress the French had made in the arts, and he
asked if the missionaries had no watches, tele-
scopes, or magic lanterns. They pointed to a
solar microscope, the only instrument of that kind

AND MONGOLIA.

109

which they had with them, and put it together,
nobody but Ki-Shen himself having the slightest
idea of its use. He asked them to exhibit it ; but
they put it up again immediately, saying, We
are here under examination and trial, not to make
exhibitions.” He then asked for the maps, which
were produced, being one of the world, on Mer-
cator’s projection, and another of China, both
printed in France.

The regent gave them a look which seemed to
say, You are ruined, and have signed your
death warrants but the missionaries appealed
to Ki-Shen’s intelligence and knowledge of things,
to distinguLsh x>rintcd from manuscript maps, and
to satisfy himself that these were not of their own
drawing. He at once recognised them as printed
maps, and pointed out the distinguishing marks to
the regent, who seemed much relieved, though he
could not understand the difference.

At the request of both these officers, the mis-
sionaries pointed out on the map of the world, the
site of all the different countries. Calcutta was a
first object of enquiry, and when it was indicated,
they remarked how near it was to Lassa. N ever
mind,” the regent add^d, the Himalaya lies be-
tween us and the English.” Ki-Shen was quite
familiar with every article used in the ritual of the

110

TIBET, TARTARY

Catholic church, having been governor of the
Picheli province, when the Christians were jicrse-
cuted and expelled. These, therefore, created in
him no suspicion, and the examination ended in a
decision, that the missionaries were plain men,
without deceit, and should be left at liberty. The
regent was delighted at this issue of the examina-
tion, and the head of the Kashmeer merchants
provided a banquet to greet them on their return
home ; and further purchased, on the regent’s
account, their two white horses for two ingots of
silver, each of ten ounces, a liberal price, exceed-
ing their value in the then* condition of the ani-
mals. One of the ingots they gave to Sambda
Chamba, as a compliment on his discharge, which
was to him a fortune, not unmerited by his ser-
vices.

The next day, the missionaries became the re-
gent’s guests, and improved their acquaintance
with him to terms of familiarity. At the house he
assigned to them, they prepared an oratory with a
crucifix, and other attributes of religion, and com-
menced their religious functions in a manner to
excite curiosity, and to give them the hope of
making converts. They began thus to flatter
themselves with the promise of great success in
their mission, and amongst others, reckoned even

AND MONGOLIA.

Ill

upon the probability of making some impression
on the regent himself- He was a man of great
experience of the world, as well as of high lite-
rary reputation in Tibet, and he delighted in dis-
cussing doctrinal questions with the missionaries,
acknowledging fully the paramount necessity of
enquiry, for the purpose of ascertaining where
truth lay, for the good of the soul in perpetuity.
He acknowledged the truths and moral precepts
of Christianity, claiming for pure Boodhisni per-
fect correspondence on these points, and alleging
the errors pointed out by the missionaries to have
been the result of erroneous teachings of ignorant
or half-informed Lamas. The two points of dis-
agreement were, the creation of the world, the
Mosaic account of which the regent could not
accept, and the doctrine of transmigration, which
was to the missionaries equally irrational- In
discussing these difierences, the regent was more
than a match for the missionaries, while they con-
versed in Tibetan, and they were compelled to
call in the Cashmerian chief merchant to interpret
the arguments they wished to enforce. The
regent seeing this, and* promising to renew the
discussion when they were more familiar with the
language, gave them his nephew for preceptor, to
perfect them in Tibetan ; and in the meantime.

112

TIBET, TARTARY

confined himself ordinarily to conversing about
Europe, its arts and habits, concerning which he
showed great curiosity, especially after having
witnessed with great wonder an exhibition of the
solar microscope. He mastered completely the
Roman alphabet, from a copy of it made Tor him
by the missionaries, and was particularly inte-
rested in descriptions of steamboats, railroads, bal-
loons, and daguerreotypes.

With Ki-Shen also the missionaries had very
friendly relations. He questioned them frequently
about England, and Queen Victoria. His idea of
Prince Albert was singular ; he conceived that,
because the British constitution gave him not the
kingly power, he must be to the queen, what
queens of China are to emperors and other royal
personages of the east, and no more. He asked
after Lord Palmerston, and Captain Elliot, and
was not surprised to hear that the latter had been
recalled, at the same time that he was himself
disgraced. He was a good man but iiTesolutc,”
said Ki-Shen ; was he put to death or exiled

Neither one nor the other ; these things are not
managed so summarily in Europe.’* I know,”
said he, your mandarins fare better than we do.
Our emperor cannot know everything ; yet it is
he only who judges, and none dare speak in his

AND MONGOLIA.

ifs

presence. If he says, ^ This is white,’ we say, ^ Truly
so, it is white if soon after, he points to the same
thing, and says, ^ It is black,’ we fall on our faces
and say, ^ Yes, it is black.’ But if one, more bold,
ventures to suggest that the same thing cannot
well be both black and white, the emperor will
say, ^ That is true but the offerer of such a sug-
gestion will probably lose his head. Ah ! we
have no assembly of chiefs as you have, to control
the actions of our emperor.”

Ki-Shen told them freely, how the affair with
the English had been treated in 1839-10. The
Emperor called his eight Choung-Tangs to coun-
cil, and stated the case. He said, These west-
ern mariners are very rebellious and refractory ;
they must be chastised, as an example to all
others.” Having thus stated his own opinion, he
asked the advice of his council. The four Man-
choo councillors fell on their faces, and said,

Yes, yes, ’tis the sovereign’s wish and order.”
The Chinese Choung-Tangs then prostrated them-
selves, and said, Yes, yes ! ’Tis the heavenly
will of the Emperor and so the thing was set-
tled. Ki-Shen himself acknowledged his convic-
tion, that the Chinese would never be able to
contend with Europeans, till they adopted their
weapons and divsciplinc ; but added, that no one

TIBET, TARTARY

114

dared to advise the Emperor to this effect, or he
would lose his head.

The missionaries had the means, through their
intimacy with the Tibetan regent, of informing
themselves fully of the doctrines and customs, as
well as of the constitutional forms of the Tibetan
theocracy. The Boodhist religion has no eternity
of punishment. Everything proceeds from God,
and will return to him ; but the soul passes, in
transmigration, to inferior or superior animals,
according to its desert. There are six grades of
animals vested with souls. Angels, demons, men,
quadrupeds, birds and reptiles. A soul in each
state has its means of attaining greater perfec-
tion ; the highest of all is to be absorbed into the
Divinity, whence again living Boodhs are de-
tached, to take a human shape, in order to recal
men from errors and teach the road to perfection.

The highest of existing regenerate Boodhs arc,
the Delai Lama of Lassa ; the Band-shan Rem-
boochi, of Djachi Loomboo, the same who was
visited by Captain Turner, in the time of Warren
Hastings ; the Geesoo Tamba of Grand Kouren,
at Oorga, on the borders of Siberia; and the
Chang-kia-fo, or great almoner of the court of
Pekin. Of all these the Delai Lama of Lassa is
the pope, or spiritual guide of all Boodhists. He

AND MONGOLIA.

115

was only nine years old when our missionaries
were there, and had been then recognised pope
for six years, having been taken from an obscure
family of Sifans, in the province of Ming-chen-
tou-tse. A^en this Boodhist pope dies, every-
body falls to meditation and prayer to discover
the new birth. Prayer barrels* turn with re-
doubled vigour. All who fancy they have a re-
generate Boodh in their families give notice, and
a council of holy ones, that is, of Kotooktoos, sits,
and selects three infants, who arc sent for to Lassa
to be examined. For six days they are shut up,
and the examiners devote themselves, this while,
to earnest meditation and prayer. On the seventh
day, they write the names of the three infants on
golden plates, and place them in an urn. The
senior Kotooktoo draws the lot ; and the child
whose name is drawn, is immediately proclaimed
Delai Lama, and carried in state through the
town; while the two rejected children are re-

* Every Lama has his prayer-barrel. Prayer and meditation
being regarded as the only efTectual means of attaining sanctifica-
tion, the continued rei>etition of the mystical ** om mani padme
is considered as the first essential of faith. Hence the
number of repetitions is the test of merit ; and for multiplication

of them, the devise of turning a barrel, on which the words are
written, has been imagined, and obtains universal credence in its
efficacy.

116

TIBET, TARTARY

turned to their families, with liberal pensions. Our
missionaries wished to be presented to the Delai
Lama, and the regent had arranged for their pre-
sentation, but an alarm was raised that the fo-
reigners might communicate the small-pox, for
it so happened, that this disease broke out soon
after the arrival of the caravan with which they
had travelled to Lassa ; thus they lost the oppor-
tunity of witnessing the forms and ceremonies of
this extraordinary court.

While they were thus living at Lassa, the guests
of the regent, and honoured and respected by the
entire population, a storm was brewing in a quarter
they little suspected. They meditated opening a
communication, through Calcutta, with the China
mission, of which they had heard nothing since
they undertook this journey ; and M. Gabet pro-
posed to attempt the route through Bootan for the
purpose, when the Chinese commissioner, Ki-Shen,
sent for them one day . without warning, and after
much prelude of compliment, told them he was
quite sure the climate of Tibet was too cold, and
the country unsuited for Frenchmen accustomed
to the life they had led ; that they had better,
therefore, prepare for their return. The mission-
aries asked, if this was his advice or his order? He
said, coldly, Both.” They objected, saying, as a

AND MONGOLIA.

117

matter of advice, they were not disposed to adopt
the suggestion, being quite prepared for all the
difficulties and inconveniences of a residence in
Tibet ; on the other hand, being under the protec-
tion of the established governor of the country,
they did not recognise his right to order them out
of it. You, strangers, and foreigners ! do you
claim the right to remain?’^ said he. They replied,
boldly, that they conceived they had the same
right as was conceded to the natives of India, of
Kashmeer, and of Mongolia; while his title of
Kin-chai, or resident-ambassador, showed himself
also to be a stranger. I, a stranger !’’ said
Ki-Shen, starting up, I, who hold the Imi)erial
commission, by right of which I have tried and
sentenced the Nome-khan of this country.” ^^But
he was a native of China, and a guilty man,” said
they ; we are men of God, preaching only the
salvation of souls.” I know,” said he, you are
good men, and zealous in your calling, but your
religion has been condemned by the Emperor.”
They declared that they needed not the Imperial
sanction to perform their religious duties. And
with this the conversation for that day closed.

They had now indeed braved the lion in his den
They went forthwith from the Kin-chai to the
regent, in order to claim his protection. He was

118

TIBET, TARTARY

well disposed to grant it, if left to himself. But
the Kinchai, declared that he was specially com-
missioned to protect the interests of the Delai
Lama, and of the Boodhist religion, in Tibet,
and that he could not permit so great a danger as
the continued residence in the country of men
who preached doctrines subservive of both. Their
aim, he said, was to subvert Boodhism,and establish
their own faith. If they succeeded, what would
become of the institutions of Tibet, and of the
Delai Lama, and what would the Emperor say to
him for allowing it ? The Tibetans, he declared,
knew not the extent of the danger, and seeing the'
men to be virtuous, and of good life, and of great
comparative' learning, believed them innocent on
that account, as well as good ; but their virtues
and their learning only made them more danger-
ous in his eyes, for the Tibetans would be unable
to cope with them on points of doctrine, and many
simple people would be won over from the faith of
their ancestors, if the mischief were not prevented
in time.

The matter was argued for several days between
the regent and the Kinchai, and protocols were
exchanged in due form. The Tibetan regent sub-
mitted in the end ; the missionaries themselves so
advising, for peace-sake. They went accordingly

AND MONGOLIA.

119

to Ki-Shen, to announce their readiness to obey his
mandate, and proposed to leave the country by the
route of India. He said he had already prepared
everything for their departure ; that they should
travel with an escort as far as the frontier of China,
but could not be permitted, as they desired, to go
by Bootan to Calcutta. They exclaimed against
the cruelty of compelling them to make again a
perilous journey, such as they had just gone
through, and hinted that their country's govern-
ment might well take umbrage at such treatment
of its innocent subjects. Ki-Shen coolly replied,
that what the French government might say or do
was nothing to him, he knew his duty to his own
government, and should deserve, and be punished
with, death, if he suffered their stay in Tibet, and
did not send them back to China.

N ext day, Ki-Shen again sent for them, to read
the report he had prepared of their case. He said,
he wished to report fairly as well as correctly, and
therefore had sent for them to hear what he had
written, in order that anything erroneous might
be corrected. M. Hue, after hearing the draft
read, said he had one thing to represent, but must
do it in secret, as it was of more importance to
Ki-Shen than to themselves. He at first insisted
on what M. Hue had to say being publicly stated.

120

TIBET, TARTARY

but on his still refusing, Ki-Shen cleared the room,
when M. Hue told him, he had entered China by
Macao, in the second month of the twentieth year
of the reign of the Emperor Tao-Kwang, when
Ki-Shen was himself viceroy at Canton, and it
would be for him to say whether this circumstance
should be reported or no. Does any one know
this?’^ said the Kinchai. “Nobody.” He then
tore up the rejiort, and wrote another, with his
own hand, saying nothing of the time of the mis-
sionaries entering China, and praising highly their
learning and general character.

This matter being so settled, it was arranged
that the missionaries should start, after the festival
of the new year of Tibet, which is one month later
than that of China, and is kept like our Christmas
and New Year, with nightly wakes, and revels, and
festivities. On the third day of the moon, the
Lamas are let loose from all the adjoining mo-
nasteries, and for six days after that, the city and
neighbourhood is inundated with them, and the
greatest confusion and disorder prevails.

There are, near Lassa, three great Lamaserais ;
those of Kaldan, Preboung, and Sera, each of
these having 15,000 Lamas attached to it. They
are distant twelve, six, and two miles respectively
from the town. The Lamas of all three deem it a

AND MONGOLIA.

121

point of duty to make the pilgrimage to the holy
Morou” convent at Lassa, in order to receive
there the benediction of the Delai Lama, for the
new year ; and the feuds and jealousies of these
institutions produce, consequently, innumerable
quarrels at this season.

The missionaries were, during these saturnalia,
preparing for their journey back to China. They
took affectionate leave of the regent, and of the
Kashmerian head merchant, with both of whom
they had established the most friendly relations.
Through the latter, they now made the attempt
to send a letter to France by Calcutta, but we arc
not informed whether it wjis successful. They
parted, likewise, with the faithful Sambda-Chamba,
and so prepared to wait on Ki-Shen, in order to
be forwarded as he might direct.

The mandarin-commandant of their escort, was
named Lee,” the Pacificator of Kingdoms.”
He had commanded on the Goorkha frontier of
Nipal, and wore a blue button. Though only
forty-five years old, he seemed upwards of seventy,
being completely worn out by service, as well as
debilitated by a life of excess, and by indulgence
in spirituous liquors. He had the rank of Tou-tse,
and was entitled, therefore, to an escort of fifteen
men, now that he was retiring from the service

G

122

TIBET, TARTARY

and returning to China. He was a man of much
intelligence, but, like most Chinese, a perfect free-
thinker in matters of religion.

To this man the missionaries were first intro-
duced on the day of their departure ; and they
went with him to Ki-Shen, who now announced,
that they were to return by a different route from
that by which they had come, but, he trusted,
neither so long, nor so difficult ; that he could not
provide them with palanquins ; so that they must
ride with the escort, and would find relays of
horses, called oollas, at the different stages and
guard-houses, for which he gave the order. He
told them they would be conveyed at the public
expense to Se-Chouen, where the Governor, Pao,
would provide for them. He next made a speech
to the Pacificator of Kingdoms,’^ advising him
to give up drinking ardent spirits ; and then he
paid him on the spot 500 ounces of silver, as
retiring bounty for his services. Lastly, he made
a speech to the escort, enjoining them to do their
duty ; and when these ceremonies had been gone
through, he took the two missionaries apart, and
told them, he himself should soon be recalled to
China, and he wished two large boxes of treasure
to be carried thither in advance.* These he asked
* Ki'Shen waa shortly after appointed Govemor of Sechouen.

AND MONGOLIA.

123

them to take amongst their baggage, and deliver
safely as directed, at Ching-tou Fou, the capital
of Se-Chouen. Then publicly warning them against
thieves, he bade them farewell.

The Kashmerian chief merchant rode with them
to the Boo-Choo river, where they found a Tibetan
escort of seven men and a Deba, appointed by the
regent to accompany them. The river was crossed
ill a skin boat by the missionaries and the Pacifi-
cator, the cattle and baggage having crossed in
canoes.

The missionaries were now travelling by relays
of the ordinary Chinese post, on the direct line
to the central provinces of China. After crossing
the river on their first march on the 15th March
1846, they went for some time along a highly-
cultivated valley, the fields marked by stone-
wall enclosures, to Detsin, a large village six
leagues or eighteen miles from Lassa. Here they
were received in state by the village authorities,
headed by the Deba Lama, who commanded the
escort of Tibetans assigned by the regent for their
protection. He proved a very intelligent, and
most useful intermediary for communications with
the people of the country. His name was Sham-
Chand. They supped here with the Pacificator
who lent them his itinerary, which they studied

G 2

124

TIBET, TARTATIY

and copied. This appears to be the work which
was first made known to Europe by the translation
into Russian, with notes of Father Hyacinth Bit-
chourin Arclii-Mandrite, and which was afterwards
rendered more carefully into French^ by M. Klap-
roth, and published in Paris, in 1831. The route
of the missionaries on return, can be followed
closely on the map, framed from the itinerary by
M. Klaproth. The Chinese author was a com-
missary who accompanied the Chinese army sent
against Nepal in 1792 ; and the work contains
some curious notices of Tibet, in addition to the
itinerary.

From Detsin the route still lay in the same
fertile valley, gradually ascending towards a moun-
tain range. After twenty-five miles (eight leagues,
eighty lis) of this march, they stopped at a convent
in ruins, situated at the extreme verge of cultiva-
tion ; but they had still twelve miles to ride to
the post station of Michhou-Koung,” which
they reached only after dark. They were com-
pelled to halt the next day, for want of the relay
of horses called the Oola.” There would be no
travelling in these hill countries, if the obligation
to furnish men and cattle were not imperative on
the population that inhabits them. This duty is
enforced more strictly than the payment of taxes.

AND MONGOLIA.

125

and is indeed, almost the only state requisition
made on the popula^pn. Every village and every
family acknowledges the liability, and must either
serve in person, or provide a substitute, or furnish
cattle. The Chinese officers abuse this regulation ,
and use influence to get an order for a larger oola
than they require, that they may take an equi-
valent for the excess. The Pacificator of king-
doms had procured our missionaries to be set,
down, as requiring twelve yaks for their luggage,
although they had but ' their beds and two port-
manteaus. Like all of his nation, he was exceed-
ingly avaricious.

The oola being at last provided, the caravan
started next morning from Michhou-Koung, and
for five days had to pass through ravines and rocky
mountains, along the line of the same river that
they had crossed on leaving Lassa. The descrip-
tion given of this part of the route is very un-
geographical, the direction by compass even not
being stated. It is, indeed, not quite clear whe-
ther the route lay down the course of the Sampoii ,
or Brainapootra, or up one of its tributaries ; but
we presume the latter, because, after five days’
travel, they ascended the Looma-Ri mountain, or
rather table-land. It was not steep, and the ascent
was made without dismounting ; but the table-

126

TIBET, TARTARY

land extends for forty lis, or about thirteen miles,
and the descent to the statioi0>f Ghiamda on the
other side was difficult, from the quantity of ice
and snow. After leaving the table-land, they had
first a dense forest to pass in a close ravine, and
then to scale a mountain-ridge on foot, from the
top of which the descent was made by a slide over
congealed snow. There were at Ghiamda two
mandarins and eighteen soldiers, who received the
Pacificator with a salute, and the Tibetan civil
authorities paid a similar compliment to the mis-
sionaries and their Deba. At Ghiamda they
stayed two days, partly detained by rain and
tempestuous weather, but mainly because the oola
was incomplete. At Ghiamda, also, the local
Deba made the missionaries a present of hair
spectacles, to guard their eyes against the glare
of snow, a necessary precaution, for from tliis
point they had, for many days together, nothing
else but snow to cross. A little way out of Ghi-
amda, a torrent was passed on a bridge of firs ;
and for three days afterwards there were no vil-
lages, nothing but Chinese guard-houses for the
relays, with a few shepherds huts ; still the horses
and cattle of the oola were always ready. Or
the fourth day, after crossing on ice a large lake^
they came to the village of Adza, where the Chinese

AND MONGOLIA,

127

itinerary says unicorns are to be found, that is the
Chcrou antelopes, described by Mr. Hodgson.

From Adza to La-Ki is only fifteen miles, but
between lies a range of mountains covered with
perpetual snow, and for five days it had been
falling fresh, making the passage very dangerous.
It was determined, after some consultation, to
proceed, if the weather continued fine, next day,
sending the yaks in advance to beat down a path-
way. The sun shone bright, and the ascent was
successfully made of this mountain of spirits.
On the other side, near the top, was a glacier
which was passed by all the party on the slide,
the yaks leading, fortunately, without loss or in-
jury. Passing down%vards, thence, along the
river, the caravan soon arrived at La-Ri, which is
reckoned to be one hundred-and-one leagues, or
about three hundred-and-thrcc miles from Lassa,
and was thus reached on the fifteenth day. There
is a provision depot at La-Ri, under a Lcang-Tai,
or Chinese civil officer, who made the excuse of
ill-health for not visiting them, but the Pacificator
said, it was avarice that f^revented the compliment
being paid, in order to save the presents that
would be required. On the first march from
La-Ri, they crossed a lake about three miles long
by two-and-a-half broad, quite frozen over, and

128

TIBET, TARTARY

lodged for the night at a village called Tsa-
chou-ka, close to some hot sji rings. Next day
they crossed the Chor-kou-La, equalling in eleva-
tion and difficulty of passage the La-Ri. After
the ascent, the journey lay for several days over a
table-land of broken ridges, with terrible preci-
pices sometimes on both sides, and with so little
footing, as to be quite unsafe, otherwise than
mounted on the trained cattle of the country, and
these often were lost by a slip or false step. The
road, indeed, was occasionally formed of wooden
pathways let into the mountain side, without, of
course, any railing.

After two days’ journey of this kind, the cara-
van reached Alan-To, where they were congra-
tulated by the Deba on their good fortune, in hav-
ing lost no lives among the precipices of the
approach.

From Alan-To, a march of ninety lis, or about
27 miles, brought them to Lang-ki-choung, a pic-
turesque village in a wooded valley, called by the
Chinese, on account of its fertility, Kin-Keou,

Golden Dell.” Here the Pacificator was dis-
concerted by the announcement that the oola was
ready, but that the Tanda pass in advance was
closed. Our missionaries looked into the itine-
rary they had borrowed, and found it stated in

AND MONGOLIA.

truth, that the Tanda pass was the most difficult of
the entire journey. People were sent to examine
the route, and reported it quite impracticable.
They were in consequence detained for some days
at Lang-Ki-Choung, and found amusement in
playing chess with their fellow-travellers, the
game being well known even in this wUd region.
x\Il this while the yaks of the place, added to those
of the caravan, were employed in beating down a
passage through the snow of the pass. On the
fourth day the passage^ was declared to be suffi-
ciently practicable, and they started. The asce nt
was so steep and slippery, that the only method of
mastering it was, to hold on by the tails of their
horses, and both would often have slidden over
into the valley they had quitted, but for the walls
of snow left on either side, M. Gabet was qqj|e
exhausted by this ascent, and must have been
left behind, if the Tibetan escort had not taken
him among them, and with great efforts pushed
him up to the top of the pass, scarcely sensible.
On the summit of the mountain was a body of
Lama pilgrims, on their return from the Lassa-
Morou, all lying down to recover their breath,
which they had quite lost in the painful ascent.
The descent on the other side of the pass was even
more precipitous than the ascent, and an ass was

G 3

130

TIBET, TARTAllY

lost over the precipice ; but, with this exception,
all reached Tanda in safety. From this station to
Lha-dze, a distance of one hundred and ten lis,
or thirty-six miles, the route proceeds along the
plain or valley of Pianpa, for half the distance,
and then down the bed of a torrent, to what river
tributary we seek in vain ; we guess it must be
one of the streams that flow into Assam, and not
into the Irawadi, or any river of Siam, or into the
great river that flows through Cambodia, the main
stream of which was yet far to the east. Klaproth
would carry into that stream the rivers of Lassa,
which we know now to form the Brahmapootra
river, debouching with the Ganges into the Bay
of Bengal. The rivers of Burma and of Siam
reach not to so high a latitude.

^|From Lha-dze to Barilang is one hundred lis
or somewhat more than thirty miles, crossing the
famous mountain Chak-la, one of the passes which
the Chinese call Lifc-olaimcrs.” It was found
fatiguing, but was passed without accident. From
Barilang, after a march of equal length in a valley
studded with herdsmens’ huts, and herds of wild
yaks, they reached Chobando, a considerable
town, with its houses and Lamascrais painted
red. Here was a military station of twenty soldiers,
under a Tsien-Chong, who as an old comrade of

AND MONGOLIA.

131

the Pacificator, gave the party a dinner. The
town is on the side of a mountain, and to reach
it they passed a fierce torrent over a fragile shak-
ing wooden bridge. Of this river, also, we learn
no more, and are uncertain, therefore, whether
the dividing land of the waters of India had yet
been reached. They were overtaken here by two
imperial couriers, who had left Lassa only six
days before, and had in that short time accom-
plished six hundred miles, on the same road that
the missionaries had traversed with so much diffi-
culty in a month. Our travellers were told that
the dispatches would reach Pekin on the thirtieth
day, carried all the way frequently by the same
men. The couriers who make these wonderful
journeys, prepare themselves by a day of fast
before starting, and during the whole journey /.at
only two eggs at each relay, never resting any-
where, and travelling both night and day.

There arc two monasteries at Chobando, and
in one is the great printing press for sacred
works for the entire Kham province, Which they
had now entered. Kia-yu-Kiao was the next
station ; the road led down a valley of heavy
forest, and the river Look-chou, which flows
through it was broad, deep and rapid ; the wooden
bridge over it had recently fallen, the wood hav-

IS2

TIBET, TAHTAllY

ing decayed from age and neglect. The river
was accordingly passed on a raft constructed
hastily for the purpose. Nine or ten miles below
Kia-yu-Kiao they crossed the river again over
a fragile wooden bridge, and then passed over a
mountain to Wa-ho-chai, a military station, where
it began to snow heavily, much to the discom-
fiture and alarm of the caravan, for the next day’s
march lay over a frozen laJke, where a general with
all his army had been buried in snow in the reign
of Kang-hi, owing to his firing a gun at the time
of encamping, according to the regulated order of
the Chinese military service. The march of next
day was long, being one hundred and fifty lis, or
from forty-five to fifty miles. They started before
daylight, and crossed the table-land and lake of
Wa-ho in full sunshine, their eyes suffering ex-
tremely from the glare of the snow, notwithstand-
ing their use of hair spectacles. It was dark
before they came to an end of the table-land, and
they reached Nzenda-chai, by a painful descent,
at midnight, completely worn out with fatigue
and nearly blinded. They were compelled to
halt next day, in order to 'relieve their eyes by
medical treatment. After three more stages of
severe mountain travel, they reached Chamdo
(Tsiamdo) on the banks of the great river, Kiang-

AND MONGOLIA.

tang-Chou. Thus, in thirty-six days from Lassa,
they had got over two thousand five hundred lis,
of the Chinese itinerary, which they reckoned
equal to two hundred and fifty leagues, or seven
hundred and fifty miles. A li is not quite one-
third of a mile, for two hundred lis equal a degree
of latitude, or sixty-nine statute miles, and one
hundred and sixty-six decimal parts of an inch,
Chanido is a considerable military station : it
has a garrison of three hundred men, with four
officers, a Yeon-Ki, a" Tsien-Choong, and two
Pa-Choongs. There is also a depot of provi-
sions, under charge of a civil officer, called a
Liang- tai, Chanido is the capital of the ]iroviiice
of Kham, and was heretofore fortified, but the
walls had fallen to decay. It lies in the fork of
the two rivers, Dza-Chou and Om-Chou, which
uniting form the Kiang-tou-chou, which flows
into Cambodia, and is there called the Ya-long-
Kiang ; both are bridged, and the road from
Lassa to Se-Chouen passes over one, that to
Yunan over the other bridge. Chamdo is a con-
siderable city, but rather in decay. There is a
large Lamaserai under a Kotooktoo, who is the
sovereign of the Kham province. Inferior to him,
but also of saintly dignity, is the Chak-Chouba
of Jaya, a Lamaserai, lying five hundred lis, or

134 TIBET, TARTARY

one hundred and fifty miles, eastward towards
China. At the period of our missionaries passing
through Chamdo, there was a feud raging between
its Kotooktoo and this Chak-chouba ; the latter,
an aspiring young priest, claimed to have received
the diploma of a Kotooktoo, in a previous gene-
ration, from the Delai Lama, a fact of which it
was difficult to prove the negative. The Chamdo
Kotooktoo, however, refused to recognise this
assumption of new dignities, and the entire pro-
vince, and especially the priesthood of Kham.
were in commotion on account of this quarrel,
After the usual course of written and verbal dis-
putation, in support of the claim and in resistance
to it, the partisans of each side came to blows.
Half the province had been ravaged by these
hostilities, and the bitterness with which the war
was carried on convulsed the entire population.
A truce had recently been agreed to, at the time
when our missionaries jjassed, in order that the
quarrel might be referred for adjudication to the
Delai Lama, and commissioners had been sent
from Lassa, and from Pekin, to adjust the dif-
ference. Many conferences had, in consequence,
been held, and the young aspirant of Jaya himself
attended at Chamdo with a large retinue of his
adherents, to influence and overawe the decision.

AND MONGOLIA.

135

The popular feeling was all on his side, the elder
Kotooktoo of Chamdo being deemed a creature of
the imperial court of Pekin, and the Tibetan
national spirit eschewing, especially, all foreign
intervention in their spiritual quarrels. The mis-
sionaries were treated with deference and respect
by both parties during the three days of their
halt at Chamdo. The infirmities of Lee, the
Pacificator of Kingdoms, and especially the swell-
ing of his legs, had so increased during this jiainful
journey, that he was advised here to purchase a
palanquin, but could not be induced to incur the
expense. The party was overtaken ai this stage
by a Chinese Liang-tou, or civil commissary, who
was returning to China with his son, a youth of
eighteen years of age ; both travelled in palan-
quins, having left Lassa a few days after the mis-
sionaries : but they had suffered so much from
the journey, that it was doubtful whether they
would have strength to reach their native country.

On our travellers leaving Chamdo, their party was
joined by a Chinese soldier, who, having received
his discharge, was carrying back his family by a
Tibetan wife, Jin unusual thing, for which he was
laughed at by the men of the Chinese escort. The
wife rode an ass, and led a pack-horse, with a child
in each of two cages balanced across his back.

136

TIBET, TARTARY

The soldier brought up the rear, with a boy of
twelve years old riding behind him. The route of
the caravan lay up the Dza-Chou river to Meng-
Phoo, distant only about twenty-five miles, and
next day a march of twenty miles brought them
to Poa-tun, where the Tibetan population began
to show a hostile spirit towards the Chinese of the
escort. A march of thirty miles then carried
them to Bagong ; in the course of it they saw
many calcareous hills, full of natural caves, some
of large dimensions, but they could not stop to
examine them. Before this, all the mountains the
missionaries had crossed from Lassa were of gra-
nite, but now most of them were of chalk or
lime-stone, and the road near Bagong was skirted
with frequent slabs of marble, on which the mys-
terious prayer Oin mani padine horn ” was
carved, wuth more or less neatness, in evidence of
the devotion of the population.

On the road between Chamdo and Bagong the
Chinese Liang-Tou died in his palanquin ; the
bearers on setting it down and opening the cur-
tains found him dead. He had left Chamdo two
days only before the caravan ; and the son here
purchased a cofiin, and fixed it in the palanquin,
in order that the corpse might be so conveyed to
the land of its fathers. For this the young man

AND MONGOLIA.

137

paid dearly, but filial duty required the sacri-
fice.

The Tibetan authorities at Bagong distinctly
told Lee the Pacificator, that no oola would be
furnished, except on payment of a fixed rate of
hire. The Pacificator remonstrated, but it was
of no use. He accordingly made a complaint
to the Proul-Tamba, a Tibetan Lama of great
influence, who lived at a short distance from
Bagong. The Lama came himself the next day,
and was received with great ceremony. He was a
man of much intelligence, and of very striking ap-
pearance. He recognised the Pacificator as an old
comrade, but was himself a hot partisan of the
J aya-Kotooktoo, and had been engaged in many
warlike operations in his favour, in which he had
always been victorious. He complained loudly of
the Chinese, for having interfered in the domestic
quarrels of Kham, and alluded also to the trial
and punishment of the Nome-Khan of Lassa by
Ki-Shen, as a gross violation of Tibetan indepen-
dence. He even spoke slightingly of the great
emperor, as being a layman of no equal authority
with a regenerate Boodh. After much invective
of the same kind against Chinese domination, he
gave at last the oola, out of consideration for his
old comrade, and for the two Lamas of the West,

138

TIBET, TARTARY

who, he said, had been specially recommended to
him by the regent of Lassa Their route lying by
the residence of the Proul-Tamba, they paid him a
visit of ceremony on their way, in return for this
civility, and towards evening arrived at Wang-
Tsa, where the Chinese guard-house had been
demolished and everything showed signs of civil
war. Here the men who came with the cola
resigned their charge to the women of the place,
because Gaya, the next stage, being of the opposite
faction, the men dared not show themselves near
it. On their arrival at Gaya, the women delivered
their charge, and returned immediately with the
oola quite unmolested, leaving the travellers at the
mercy of the population. A council was forth-
with held of the chief men of the place, and it was
resolved to furnish an oola to the Tibetans of the
party, and to the missionaries, gratis, in deference
to the regent of Lassa, but to demand payment
for all animals taken by Chinese of the party.
The Pacificator remonstrated, and inveighed in
vain against this resolution ; he was obliged to
Submit.

At Angti, the next stage, they were detained five
days, partly by a fall of snow, but mainly while
discussing the affair of the oola. The Heba Chief
of Angti, was a dwarf, ahnost without legs, named

AND MONGOLIA.

139

Jiomba, a man nevertheless of great energy of
character. Mounted on the shoulders of a strong
mountaineer, his voice was always heard loudest ;
he influenced every determination of the local
council, and arranged everything. He also was
particularly civil to the missionaries, and gave
them a dinner, but was inexorable in his hostility
to the Chinese.

On leaving Angti there is a high snowy moun-
tain pass, which proved as troublesome as any of
the preceding. The passage occupied the whole
day, and it was midnight before they reached
Jaya, the he* ad quarters of the aspiring Kotooktoo.
The town had suffered in the civil war, and was
nearly destroyed ; but there was here a guard-
house and a garrison of twenty Chinese, who
strove almost in vain to maintain a strict neutrality
in the civil war. The next stage was Adzoo-
Thang, 'where they overtook, again, the palanquin
of the Liang-Tou, who had died at Bagong, and
whose son here also fell a victim to the hardships
of the journey. How to carry to China this
second corpse, puzzled much the ingenuity of the
escort, yet it was a duty not to be neglected. The
body of the son \vas accordingly secretly cut in
pieces, and placed in the same coffin with the
father.

140

TIBET, TARTARY

From Adzoo-Thang the next stage was Cli4-
Pan-Keou, a valley of slates, gold-dust, and musk
deer. Here, and at the three following stations >
the Chinese were similarly called upon to pay the
hire of the oola, while the missionaries and Tibe-
tans were furnished with cattle gratis.

The party next arrived at Keang-Tsa, a Chinese
town and military post of considerable size, hav-
ing two military mandarins. These latter per-
suaded Lee, the Pacificator, to give up travelling
on horseback, and to use the palanquin of the son
of the civilian, which was at his service gratis, in
consequence of the youth’s decease.

Four days after leaving Keang-Tsa, the caravan
reached the banks of the mighty Yang-tse-Keang.
They crossed it soon after, and descended its
valley to Bathang, a large city and military sta-
tion, situated in a climate differing altogether
from that in which they had spent the preceding
two years. At Bathang is a garrison of three
hundred Chinese soldiers, under a Chion-Pie,
two Tsien-Chongs, and a Pa-Choong, whose pay,
amounting in the whole to nine thousand ounces
of silver, is remitted regularly from China. The
population is mixed Chinese ancf Tibetan. There
is here a large Tibetan Lamaserai, under a Kampo
delegate of the Delai Lama, but his authority is

AND MONGOLIA.

141

confined to spiritual matters, the temporal power
being in the hands of a Taou-Tse, or tributary
prince of China. The increasing illness of the
Pacificator caused a halt of three days at Bathang.
From Chamdo to Bathang the route had been
southerly for the entire twenty days of march, but
now it turned northward, and on the second day
after leaving that city, they crossed another
snowy range, and encamped in a miserable hut,
at a station called Ta-so, situated in a valley,
whence again they ascended, next day, to a table-
land covered with snow. Beneath it was a mag-
nificent forest of pines, and cedars, and hollies of
large size.

The march was long from Ta-so to Samba, and
Lee, the Pacificator, quite worn out with the
fatigue, was found dead in his bed in the mornings
This caused a halt, until arrangements could be
made to carry the body forward. The Chinese
escort were now without a commandant, and were
not willing to obey the Tibetan Lama, who had
the separate charge of the escort of that nation,
provided by the regent of Lassa. The missionaries
were compelled in consequence to take on them-
selves the general direction of the party, and were
cheerfully obeyed by the men of both nations.
Three more days of mountain march carried them

142

TIBET, TART ARY

to Li-thang, a depot with one hundred soldiers,
having for ofRcers a Liang-tai, a Cheon-pie, and
two Pa-Choongs. It was the duty of one of
these, to take the command vacated by the death
of the Pacificator, and to carry on the escort, but
all wished to shirk the service, and to leave the
missionaries to direct the march, as they had done
since the death of the brigadier-general. On their
refusal, a Pa-Choong was at last appointed, ^yho
begged for a delay of two days to make pre-
paration.

At Li-thang is a printing press for Boodhist
sacred books, but the language of the place is
neither Tibetan nor Chinese, and seemed to the
missionaries to resemble the Sifan dialect of the
Koko-noor more than any other. The Tibetans of
the escort were understood with difficulty. From
Li-thang to Ta Tsien-lou, the frontier town of
Se-Chouen, was a further distance of six hundred
lis, or two hundred miles, of mountain road,
divided into eight stages. In the course of this
march, one day beyond Makian-Joong, the party
crossed a large tributary of the Yang-tse-Kiang,
called Ya-loong-Kiang, which rises at the foot of
the Bayan Kharat Mountains, and joins the Blue
River in the Se-Chouen province. At Ta-Tsien-
lou the Tibetan escort took leave. It was the

AND MONGOLIA.

143

end of June when this town was reached; the
journey from Lassa having occupied three months,
and being rated in Chinese itineraries at five
thousand and fifty lis, sixteen hundred and eighty-
three miles. From thence to Se-Chouen the
missionaries travelled in palanquins. Of their
adventures there, and the trial they underwent
before the Chinese tribunals, they promise a
separate report, which, if the story be but half as
well told, as this of their journeys in Tartary and
Tibet, will be looked for and read with double
interest; for M. Hue’s lively and unpretending
narrative cannot fail to leave in every reader most
kindly feelings of respect for the character of these
missionaries, joined to a high reverence for the truly
apostolic zeal, and untiring energy, which carried
them through their hardships. Every one therefore
will desire to follow them through all their further
dangers, and to learn every circumstance of their
intercourse with the singular sections of the human
race with which they were brought thus strangely
in collision, and of whose institutions, habits, and
feelings their narrative promises to afford a more
perfect knowledge.

But of all the important matters laid open to
us in these volumes, there is nothing so interest-
ing, or so deserving of attention, as the insight

144

TIBET, TARTARY

they afford into the Boodhist doctrines, and into
the discipline, ritual, and practices of those who
still believe and profess that religion. We must
not close our notice of this work without reverting
to this subject.

Everybody knows that the Boodhist faith so
widely spread over Eastern Asia, had its origin in
the teachings of Sakhya Muni, a saint, whose era
dates long before Christ. The Chinese carry the
era back to more than one thousand years, and De
Guignes and Klaproth fix it from these author
rities at 1027 years before Christ. Sir William
Jones adopted the same date. But it is to be
observed, that the Chinese, acknowledging the
author of this religion to have been a native of
India, state their nation to have adopted the faith
of Boodh one thousand years after it had been
preached there. Their chronology, therefore, so
far as it dates from this era, commenced only from
its thousandth year, and wants earlier verification.
Indian authorities, on the other hand, confirming
the Cingalese, Burmese, and Siamese dates for the
commencement of the Boodhist era, fix the death
of Sakhya-Muni (called his nirvariy or absorption
into the divine spirit) in the year b.c. 543. This
difference, of four hundred and thirty-six years
has led many to believe the Chinese era to refer

AND MONGOLIA.

145

to an anterior Boodh, but it is more probably
ascribable to the round number of a thousand, as-
sumed for the antiquity of the religion at the time
of its spread in that country. The date is so far
important, as’thc extraordinary similitude in many
parts of the doctrine, and of the books, and ritual,
and forms, and institutions of this religion, with
those of llomish Christianity, which was remarked
by the Jesuits who visited Tibet in the seven-
teenth century, and even by Father Rubruquis in
the thirteenth, might lead to the belief that they
had been borrowed entirely from this latter, if
the chain of evidence that established their
greater antiquity were less complete.

The points of resemblance referred to commence
even with the form of the Scriptures, or principal
books of the faith. The most important is the
life of Sakhya-Muni, whose doctrines are repre-
sented as having been delivered in discourses held
to his ten disciples, or as arising out of occasions,
not unsimilar in some respects to those recorded
in our Evangelists. The idea of a divine spirit
being moved to take on itself a human form for
the instruction of mankind, and for the redemp-
tion of the human race from the sins into which
it had fallen by a course of degeneracy, is Boodh-
istical. The doctrine of the fall of man, that is,

H

146

TIBET, TARTARY

the Mosaic account of the creation of the world,
and of the original sin of the father of the human
race, is no part of Boodhism ; and this we may
remark would likewise most probably have been
found there, if it had been a religion borrowed
from the Christian as its antecedent. The spirit
of Sakhya-Muni is alleged to have been pre-
existent, in a condition of sanctified holiness, pre-
eminent amongst the gods of Tushita, and there,
being moved to become incarnate in the human
form, in order to redeem mankind from the sin
and degeneracy it had fallen into from long tast-
ing of earthly pleasures, and from their corrupt-
ing infiuences, it elected the royal race of Shudho-
duna for the birth. The conception of Maya-
Devi, the mother, is described as miraculous and
mystical, and the birth as attended with miracles,
but not of the same description with those which
attended the birth of our Saviour. There is, how-
ever, a holy man like Simeon, who, admonished
by an illumination of the world, bears witness to
the child’s divine mission, and laments that age
will prevent his hearing his doctrine. Sakhya
also at school displays learning which confounds
the doctors and professors. He takes on himself
the domestic state, and marries twice, but at the
age of twenty-nine, he is led^to commence a course

AND MONGOLIA.

147

of meditation, his attention being directed to four
subjects in particular — old age, sickness, death,
and a future state. He gives up the world to
pursue his meditations on these subjects, and to
seek the truth. He practises mortifications, until
finding his body weakened, he bathes in the
Nyranjana river, and takes refreshment after-
wards to recover his strength. This is a species
of baptism. He is tempted after his baptism by
the God of Pleasure, who makes offers of worldly
power, like those we find in the Temptation in
the Wilderness. But he rejects them, and over-
comes and drives away the tempter. After this
his meditations are rewarded by an inspiration of
the divine Spirit, and so becoming a supreme
Boodh, he begins to preach his doctrine, which
is adopted first by ten disciples of implicit faith,
and then wins over the multitude.

The precepts he inculcates are : — First, That
there is sorrow in life. Second, That this sorrow
is inseparable from mortality. Third, That it
may be remedied. Fourth, That faith in his doc-
trine, and its reception and observance will give
the remedy, which is, salvation in an improved
future state, preparatory to absorption ultimately
in the. divine spirit. He goes from place to place
in India, teaching this doctrine, and is followed

H 2

148

TIBET, TARTARY

and revered, until he dies at last in Assam at the
advanced age of eighty, his death being attended
with many prodigies. The body is burnt, and the
remains are collected and revered as relics of pre-
eminent sanctity. A contention then arises, as to
their disposal, and the remains are divided be-
tween eight cities, each of which erects a Stupa,
or mausoleum over its portion.

This is said to have occurred in the reign of
Ajata-Satra, who was the predecessor of Chandra-
gupta (Sandracottus) by one hundred and ninety-
six years. The future state promised by Sakhya-
Muni, is regeneration in an inferior or superior
animal condition, according to the degree of spi-
ritual perfection obtained in life by meditation
and faith, the highest reward of all being that
which Sakhya-Muni himself obtained, viz., ab-
sorption into the divine Spirit, from which all
vitality is believed to ha/e emanated originally,
and to which all will finally return. The next
highest state to that of immediate absorption, is
that of perpetual regeneration as a Boodh. There
is in Boodhism no perpetuity of punishment in a
place of torments, but the regeneration in inferior
animals, is not very dissimilar to the purgatory of
Catholics, as was remarked by Father Grueber ;
and the Devas, or gods, of the different heavens.

AND MONGOLIA.

149 ^

are of the same class with angels and saints. In
every state there is a means of reaching a superior
condition, if properly followed out ; and life is
sacred and not to be taken without sin, because of
its being of the divine essence, passing, in this
world, through the course prescribed towards
final absorption.

Such are the principal characteristics of the ‘
Boodhist doctrine. With respcr;t to the institu-
tions : the doctrine that a spiritual, and even a
divine condition is to be obtained by withdrawing
from the world, and by meditation, prayer, and
abstraction, gave early origin to the monastic con-
dition. We have distinct evidence of the exist-
ence of institutions of this kind, established in
viharas, or cells and caves, or in buildings, erected
for the convenience of those who sought so to
spiritualise themselves by separation from the
world, at dates long antecedent to our era. Such
buildings exist in India, at present, only as re-
mains of antiquity, quite deserted ; but we find
them in Tibet and Tartary, exactly in the condi-
tion that we may imagine, from the traces left of
the domiciles occupied by the Indian Sramanas,
or Lamas, that they presented heretofore in various
parts of Hindoostan ; and this at periods, at least
twenty centuries anterior to the present. That

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TIBET, TARTARY

condition varies very little from what is reported
of the earlier Christians ; and we have still, ac-
cording to M. Hue, both at Koon-boom and in
Tibet, the type of the devotees who i^ractiscd
penances, and sat on pillars, like Simeon Stelites.

The discipline, the habits, and even the ritual of
these monasteries of Tibet and Tartary, have also
a remarkable resemblance to those of the churches
of Rome and Constantinople in the middle ages.
With respect to the ritual, we have before noticed
the strong impression which its resemblance in
many points made on Father Grueber, in the se-
venteenth century. Captain Turner, the ambas-
sador of Warren Hastings to Tibet, in 1783, re-
marked the great similarity which tho chaunts of
alternate verses by the officiating priest, and by
the congregations of Tibet, bore to the ceremonies
of high-mass in the Romish Church. He was
quite ignorant of the Tibetan language, and
judged merely of the form, and manner, and effect
of what he saw and heard- M. Hue confirms this
report, as the result of his longer and more ac-
curate observation, based on some acquaintance
with the language of Tibet ; and he tells us how
intense and extensive is the study of ritual in the
Koon-boom monastic college, and in similar insti-
tutions of Lassa. Now Csoma Korosi has given

AND MONGOLIA.

151

US translations, and abstracts, of some part of
what is thus chaunted or recited, and we have
ourselves been much struck by the resemblance in
spirit and tone, to parts of the Litany, and of the
Psalms, which are similarly read or chaunted in
Catholic churches. Take the following hymn, for
instance, in celebration of the victory gained over
the great tempter, prior to the reception of the
divine inspiration by Sakhya-Muui. We copy
it from Csoma Korosi’s translation, breaking only
the verses, for alternation of the chaunt or recita-
tion, which is the method of reading and deliver-
ing it.

Priest, There has arisen the Illuminator ol
the world ! the world’s Protector ! the Maker of
light ; who gives eyes to the world that is blind, —
to cast away the burden of sin.”

Congregation, Thou hast been victorious in
the fight : thy aim is accomplished by thy moral
excellence : thy virtues are perfect : Thou shalt
satisfy men with good things.”

P, “ Gotama (Sakhya) is without sin : He is
out of the miry pit. He stands on dry ground.”

C, Yes, He is out of the mire; and he will save
other animated beings, that are carried olF by the
mighty stream.”

152

TIBET, TARTARY

P. The living world has long suffered the dis-
ease of corruption. The Prince of physicians is
come to cure men from all diseases.’’

C. Protector of the world ! by thy appearance,
all the mansions of distress shall be made empty.
Henceforth, angels and men shall enjoy happi-
nessi*’ &c., &c.

Again, see another hymn.

Priest. “ To .Thee, whose virtue is immaculate,
whose understanding is pure and brilliant, who
hast the thirty-two characteristic signs complete,
and who hast memory of all things, with discern-
ment and fore-knowledge.”

Congregation. Reverence be to Thee : we adore
Thee ; bending our heads to our feet.”

P. To Thee, who art clean and pure from all
taint of sin, — who art immaculate, and celebrated
in the three worlds, — who, being possessed of the
three kinds of science, givest to animated beings
the eye to discern the three degrees of emancipa-
tion from sin.”

C. Reverence be to Thee.”

P. “ To Thee, who with tranquil mind clearest
the troubles of evil times : who, with loving kind-
ness, teachest all living things to walk in the path
designed for them.”

AND MONGOLIA.

153

C. Reverence be to Thee !”

P, Muni ! whose heart is at rest, and who
delightest to explain the doubts and perplexities of
men: who hast suffered much for the good of living
beings : Thy intention is pure ! Thy practices are
perfect.’^

C, “ Reverence be to Thee.^’

jP. Teacher of the four truths ; rejoice in sal-
vation ! who, being thyself free from sin, desirest
to free the world from sin.”

C. Reverence be to Thee.”

We could multiply illustrations of this kind
without limit ; but these examples will suffice to
show the resemblance we have noticed in the forms
and method of the Boodhist ritual. It is, howeve r,
much more elaborate than that of any church of
Christendom, the books containing it being very
voluminous, and the services being exceedingly
complicated, and differing, almost, for every day
of the year, besides being special for every festival.

In the absence of authentic histories, it is not
easy to settle the precise period when the doctrine
and forms of Boodhist worship were first established
in the east ; but no one has ever doubted their gre«at
antiquity. The early missionaries of the Romish
church believed them to be a form of Christianity

TIBET, TARTARY

\b4

preached there in the time of the first Apostles ;
and hearing of the theocratic government estab-
lished in Tibet, and occasionally amongst Tartars
and Mongols of the desert, carried back to Europe
tales of a Prester, or Presbyter John, to excite the
wonder, and stimulate the zeal of the pious in
Christendom. But the more accurate and search-
ing enquiries of the present age have brought out
this religion in a new character, and leave little
doubt of its priority by several centuries to Chris-
tianity, with forms of worship and with doctrines,
corresponding closely with those which so forcibly
struck Captain Turner in Tibet, and which excited
the wonder of the missionaries of successive cen-
turies, both there and in Mongolia.

Of the sacred books of Boodhism we have now
three complete versions, in the Sanscrit, Tibetan,
and Pali languages ; and all have been carefully
examined and reported upon by thorough profi-
cients in each of these languages respectively. Wc
have a Sanscrit version, that was obtained in Nipal
by Mr. Hodgson, the British resident at Katman-
doo,and after being studied and partially abstracted
by himself, was by him transmitted to the Royal
Library of Paris about fifteen years ago, and has
there been closely examined by Messrs. Kemusat
and Bournouf, whose works on the subject arc

AND MONGOLIA.

155

before the world. We have also a Tibetan version
obtained through the same channel, and subjected
by the government of India to the examination of
M. Csoma Korosi. The result of his labours has
appeared in several translations and abstracts,which
were published in the Asiatic Researches of Bengal,
and in the monthly journal of the Asiatic Society,
between the years 1835 and 1840. The Pali version
was traced out by Mr. George Turnour, a high civil ‘
functionary of Ceylon. This gentleman first pub-
lished in a separate volume the text, with a close
translation of the Maha-wansa, an ancient poem on
the origin and spread of the Boodhist religion, com-
piled in the fifth century of our era from the Cinga-
lese version of the Attha-katha, a work of much
higher antiquity. He next published in the pages
of the journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, a
series of valuable essays, with the heading of ‘‘ Pali
Budhistical Annals and in these we find a com-
plete analysis of the sacred books themselves, and
a critical examination of the grounds for assuming
them to be genuine, and for assigning them to a
date and period, very nearly corresponding with
that claimed for them by the professors of the
religion.

We have no means of determining the precise
date when the Sanscrit version of these Boodhist

156

TIBET- TARTARY

Scriptures was prepared. It professes to have been
made from an original in the language of Moghada,
that is, of Bahar, in which pro\dnce both Patali-
putra, (the ancient Palibothra, now Patna) and
Bajgriha, where Sakhya Muni was born, and which
was the more ancient caj)ital of that province, were
situated. The Tibetan version was translated from
the Sanscrit, and took the shape of the Kahgyur,
in which it now exists, in one hundred leaf volumes,
between the seventh and ninth centuries of our era.
Tibet does not pretend to conversion to Boodh-
ism till many centuries after the death of Sakhya
Muni ; we cannot, therefore, look in this quarter
for evidence of the date of the first appearance of
this religion in the world ; but when wc find that
the version of its Scripture now current there,
and the Sanscrit version also, through which it
was derived, correspond in all essentials with the
Pali version of the same Scriptures found in Ceylon,
Siam, and Burma (for all these are identical), it
is an undeniable collateral evidence of the genuine
character of the whole ; for there could be no
collusion between the priests of all these distant
regions. Still, in order to establish the antiquity
of the original Scriptures, we must seek other
proofs than this conformity.

The Pali books examined and abstracted by

AXD MONGOLIA.

157

Mr. Tumour, consist of the Pitakattayan, the At-
tha-katha, and the Mahawansa. The first is, quasi,
the gospel of Boodhists, containing the life, dis-
courses, and precepts of Sakhya Muni himself, as
derived from his own mouth, and put together by
his disciples immediately after his decease. The
Attha-katha is, quasi, the acts of the apostles, and
contains the account of the settlement of the Pita-
kattayan, and of the succession of Theros, or chief
disciples and preachers of the religion after Sakhya
Muni ; also of the schisms which took place in the
first few centuries after the nirvan, or decease, of
the great saint and founder; and especially of the
convocations held, as well to settle the’Gospel itself
in the first instance, as to determine the points of
difference, and to suppress schisms as they arose.
This latter work is by far the most valuable to the
historian, and if its genuineness and antiquity can
be considered established, there are many doubtful
, points of chronology, and many matters touching the
succession of kingly races, and other events, also re-
garding the state of society of the period between the
de^th of Sakhya, B.c. 54*3, and the date of its promul-
gation, B.c. 306, that it will assist in clearing up.

It is stated in the Mahawansa, that the Pita-
kattayan was brought to Ceylon by Mahindo, the
son of Asoka, in the eighteenth year -of his father’s

158

TIBET, TARTARY

reign, that is, in b.c. 306, in the exact Pali form
in which it now exists. That the Attha-katha was
brought to the island at the same time, but was
circulated and first made known in the Cingalese
vernacular dialect. Both books are stated to have
been preserved, orally only, for more than two cen-
turies, as they well might be in the monasteries ;
but to have been committed to writing in the reign
of a king who flourished in Ceylon between b.c.
104 and b.c. 76. The Attha-katha existed in this
condition in Cingalese, until it was rendered back
into Pali by a priest who came from Moghada, of
great learning and celebrity, whose name was
Budha Ghosa. This is stated to have occurred
between the years a.d. 410, and a.d. 432 ; and a
full account of all these circumstances is given in
the Mahawansa, which was written between a.d.
459, and 477, and professes to have been compiled
from the same Cingalese version of the Attha-katha.
The facts mentioned in both these works corre-
spond in all essentials with the record of similar
events found in the Sanscrit and Tibetan sacred
books, and the differences consist only of some
insertions in the former, specially referring to
Ceylon, and likely to have been interpolated by
priests of that nation. We may, therefore, fairly
look on these works as standing nearly on the

AND MONGOLIA.

159

same footing as the Pitakattayan : for the record
of events found in them was equally brought to
Ceylon in the reign of Asoka, in the condition in
which it existed, and was received and believed
in Moghada in that reign. This be it observed,
was more than {hrec hundred years before the
birth of our Saviour. The Attha-katha contains
nothing of subsequent date to b.c. 306, and it
appears to have come to us nearly perfect through
this channel, although not free from interpolations,
and not in the original text.

Now, let us examine whether these books con-
tain internal evidence to confirm the inference
that they were current at this early period. The
Pitakattayan, which contains the life and discourses
of Sakhya Muni, refers to cotemporary kings of
India, of dynasties known then to have held do-
minion in India, and to disciples of Sakhya, who
became afterwards leaders of the Boodhist faith.
There is nothing found in it inconsistent with the
fact of its declared antiquity- The Attha-katha
tells us that this Pitakattayan was settled in the
state in which we find it, for the Pali language
corresponds with that of Moghada, at a convoca-
tion held in the first year after Sakhya’s decease ;
three of his disciples, Kasyapa, Up&li, and Anando,
having each presided at the recital and settlement
of the three several portions of the work.

160

TIBET, TART ARY

This account of its authorship is confirmed
precisely by what is found in the Sanscrit and
Tibetan versions of the same sacred books. The
Pali Attha-katha tells us further of schisms which
then arose amongst the professors of the Boodhist
religion, and that for the settlement of these, a
second convocation was held one hundred years
after the first, which determined the points in
dispute, and expelled the heretics. Of this con-
vocation, however, and of the schisms which led
to it, we have no mention in the Tibetan scriptures
of Boodhism, which, as they were avowedly of
much later origin, would seem to show that the
importance of the convocation, and perhaps even
the memory of the schism, had then quite passed
away. The points in dispute in this first century
of Boodhism, referred to indulgences in matters
of priestly discipline, such as in respect to the
keeping of salt for more than seven days, which
some pretended might be allowed in vessels of
horn ; also in the eating of food after mid-day,
and things of the kind. The indulgences claimed
were ten in number. The convocation denounced
them all, requiring a rigid adherence to the letter,
as well as to the spirit of the rules and precepts
of the Pitakattayan, as settled at the first convoca-
tion, which shows the severe discipline enforced
at that early period in all viharas, as the religious

AND MONGOLIA.

161

establishments of the priesthood were then called
in India.

In the reign of Asoka, the grandson of Chan-
dragupta, who was the Sandracottus of Megas-
thcnes, a third convocation was held, according to
the Attha-katha and Mahawansa, and the Tibetan
sacred books confirm this. King Asoka is stated
to have become a convert to Boodhism in the
fourth year of his reign, and was an active propa-
gandist of the faith. The Attha-katha says, that
consequently upon this royal patronage, many
heretics and unbelievers assumed the priestly
garb, “ shaving their heads and clothing them-
selves in yellow robes,’’ which is exactly the cha-
racteristic of Lamas of the present day ; and that
they sauntered about viharas, spreading dissen-
sions and interrupting the ceremonies of the true
religion, being especially addicted to fire-worship
and to sacrifices. Consequently upon these dis-
sensions, the rigid priests of Boodhism suspended
the performance of the ‘^Uposatho” periodical
worship and ceremonies, and also of the Pawa-
rano, declaring that these could not properly be
performed in the public halls or churches of the
viharas in company with heretics. The suspen-
sion of these rites continued, according to the
statement, for seven years, when King Asoka,

162

TIBET, TARTARY

taking umbrage, ordered the Uposatho to be re-
newed at his principal vihara at Pataliputra, and
sent his chief minister to enforce this order. The
heads of the establishment still refused, where-
upon the minister caused several of them to be
beheaded on the spot, in the order in which they
sat in the assembly. The king’s brother, Tisso,
who was attached to this vihara, then placed him-
self on the seat to which the minister next came
in turn, and held out his head for martyrdom by
decapitation ; but the minister hesitated, and re-
ferred again to the king for orders. Shocked at
the issue to which the matter had thus been
brought. King Asoka humbled himself before the
ministers of religion, and asked for absolution.
A convocation was then held to settle the points
in dispute, and the Boodhist church being purged
by the expulsion of 60,000 heretics, whose yellow
dresses were taken away, and white furnished to
them instead, the Uposatho was performed again
with great solemnity. It was at this convocation
that the sacred books were again revised and
finally settled, and the Attha-katha closes with
the record of this particular event. It occurred
in the seventeenth year after Asoka’s inaugura-
tion, that is, in the year b.c. 307, just before
Mahindo’s mission to Ceylon.

AND MONGOLIA.

163

Such, but with extraordinary detail, is the in-
ternal evidence deducible from these sacred books
of Ceylon. It remains to show how this evidence
is supported by external events and circum-
stances. There is, first, the fact of the era of the
death of Sakhya, Muni, (called his Nirvan ” or
absorption into the divinity), which era, being
introduced into Ceylon, at the time of Mahindo’s
carrying thither the religion and scriptures of
Boodhism, has been retained in the annals of that
island to the present' day. The same era is
current in Burma and in Siam. There is, second,
the reference to the reign of Chandragupta and
his descendants, whose identity with the Sandra-
cottus of Megasthenes is admitted, and whose
reign is thus fixed chronologically. These are
strong corroboartive circumstances, but are far
from being the whole of the evidence. Within
the last fifteen years, inscriptions in a very ancient
Indian character have been deciphered, which
purport to be edicts of a king who calls himself
Devanam-pia-Piadasi. These edicts, as trans-
lated by Mr. J ames Prinsep, with the aid of pun-
•dits in Calcutta, purport to be injunctions of a
direct Boodhist character, consistent with the
faith thus stated to have been adopted by King
Asoka ; and Mr. Tumour has established the

164

TIBET, TARTARY

name of Piadasi as identical with that of King
Asoka. In two copies of these edicts, viz., those
found at Gimar in Guzrat, and at Kapoordigiri,
not far from Peshawur, the names of Antiochus
and Ptolemy, and of Antigonus, Alexander, and
Magas, are specifically cited as of cotemporary
kings, through whom the doctrines and principles
of the edicts are to be further extended. We are
aware that Professor Wilson, in a recent memoir
on these inscriptions, has cast doubts on the inter-
pretation of the edicts, and denies that there is
ground for assigning them to King Asoka, or
even for supposing them to be Boodhistical ; but
his criticism is a mere statement of doubts ; and
whether the edicts of the specific inscription he
discusses, which is five times repeated, and pur-
ports to contain the edicts of the twenty -seventh
year of Piadasi’s reign, be fairly susceptible of
Boodhistical interpretation or no, signifies little,
for there is a further edict in the same precise
language and character, and of the same King
Pyadasi, which was discovered at Bhabra, on
the road between Jyporc and Dehli, and which
settles the point by specifically referring to the
precepts and doctrines of Bhagavat Boodha,”
the Lord Boodha, as the only faith to be followed,
and condemns the precepts of the Vedas, which

AND MONGOLIA.

165

enjoin sacrifices ; and the same edict especially
upholds the merit and virtues of the Uposadh
ceremonies, and further, is specifically addressed
to the faithful congregated in Moghada. It would
thus seem to have been published in the seven-
teenth year of this king, on the conclusion of the
convocation, referred to in the Attha-katha, for
purging the Boodhist church of Vedan heresies,
as the condition upon which only the Boodhist
priesthood would perform the periodically-recur *
ring rite of Uposadh. This* inscription will be
found in No. 102 of the Journal of the Asiatic
Society of Calcutta, and is there given in text,
with a translation by Kamla Kant and Sarodha
Prashad, the same pundits who assisted Mr. James

*

* The following extracts arc from the translation of this most
important edict, as made bj Kamla Kanta Pundit and Sarodha
Prashad: —

“ Piadasa Baja, to the multitude assembled in Maghada, salut-
ing them, says thus : —

“ That the sacrifice of animals is forbidden is well known to
you. For men of Boodhist faith, such is not mote. The per-
formance of the Uposadh is most essential.”

• “ The vedas of the Munis are observed by their disciples j their
future state is to bo dreaded.

“ The text of the vedas enjoining sacrifices are mean and false.
Follow what the Lord Boodha bath commanded. Do this for
the glory of Dhurma (religion.) This I desire,” Ac.

166

TIBET, TARTARY

Prinsep in the translation and deciphering of the
edicts before discovered. The stone containing
the writing was afterwards transmitted to Cal-
cutta, and is there deposited. The Uposadh was
a recurring monthly rite, regulated by the moon’s
changes; it was a church service performed in
the public halls of the viharas, and whether it
could properly be performed in private houses was
one of the schismatic points settled at the second
convocation. Its suspension for seven years was
felt as a national grievance, which the King Asoka
determined to remedy, but he was compelled by
the obstinacy of the priesthood to submit to their
condition of first cleansing the church of its here-
tics and schismatics. We conceive, that upon
this collateral testimony of rock-preserved edicts,
in a language no longer extant, but conforming
with that of the Pali sacred books of Ceylon,
Siam, and Burma, — of edicts which refer to
kings Ptolemy and Antiochus as cotemporaries,
the inference will not be rejected, that the sacred
books and ritual of the Boodhists, as now observed
by professors of that religion, were then the re-
ceived scriptures and state religion of India. We
have further evidence of this in the ruins of an-
cient Stupas and viharas existing in many locali-
ties of India, which indicate a condition of things

AND MONGOLIA.

167

and of monastic institutions, exactly correspond-
ing with the Lamascrais described as still existing
in Tibet and at Koon-boom, at Koko Khotun,
and in other places of Tartary and Mongolia.
The Stupas are mounds of solid masonry erected
over the ashes or relics of saints and teachers of
the Boodhist religion ; and round them cells and
domiciles for disciples or Sramanas appear to
have been built by the pious, or provided by
themselves, in ‘ the precise mannt'r in which they
arc now found at Koonboom and Lassa. These
have for centuries been in ruins, but they bear
inscriptions of the same, and even of more early
date than the deciphered edicts of Asoka to which
we have referred above. The most remarkable of
these ruins arc found at Sanchi, near Bhilsa, south-
west of Bundelkund. The inscrij)tions found on
several stones and gateways of this ancient vihara,
furnished the key for deciphering the Asoka
edicts ; and within these few days, there has
been read at the Royal Asiatic Society of London,
a paper by Captain Cunningham, on the subject
of excavations made to ascertain the precise con-
tents of several of these Stupas. The metal,
steatite, and chrystal vases containing the relics
have all been exhumed, and on several, or on the
covering cerements, are legible inscriptions in

168

TIBET, TART ARY

characters of the age antecedent to that of Asoka,
recording that the relics are those of the very
disciples and associates of Sakhya Muni, whose
names are mentioned in the Pitakattayan and in
the Attha-katha, as well as in the Tibetan books.
This seems to be a strong confirmation of the
verity of those books, and of the fact, that the
record tliey contain was at least the received
gospel of the age, when these Stupas were built,
and that alphabet was used. We have no desire
and no right to anticipate the publication of the
very interesting results which have attended the
search of these Stupas. Suffice it that they are
quite irreconcileable with any construction of the
accounts received of the Boodhist faith, that does
not carry back the founder to the sixth century
before our era. These, indeed, may not be the
real tombs of the saints and disciples of Sakhya
Muni, whose names are found on the vases and
cerements, but the more probable inference is
that they are so : still, whether admitted to be so
or no, the appearance of the buildings, and the
character of the inscriptions, indicates a date for
their construction at least three or four hundred
years before Christ ; and the erection of these
Stupas at that date over even fictitious relics,
shows the sacred books recording the laws of

AND MONGOI.IA.

169

these saints and disciples, to be then the received
faitli of a large and wealthy pojjulation, and this
is all wc seek to establish.

If Boodhism, however, existed with these books
at so early a date, we are met by the difficulty of
accounting for the silence of Greek authors of
antiquity in respect to them. The very name of
Boodh is met with nowhere in Greek literature
before the time of Clemens Ale:iandrinus, and he
mentions only incidqji tally one Tcrebinthus, who,
coming from India, set up for a Boodh
and imposed on many. We certainly have diffi-
culty in accounting for this silence, but it is not
inconsistent with Greek habit, so to treat barba-
rian literature of all kinds. How little do we
find in Greek books of the history or literature
of the Persians and Parthia^' . ' a whom they
were in close relation pc»litically and commerci-
ally for many ages. And it is to be observed, the
Boodhist sacred books were the special property
of the priesthood, and were mostly preserved and
transmitted orally amongst them : probation, by
long discipline, and by shaving the head, and
assuming the yellow garb of a priest, was a con-
dition antecedent to the acquisition of any know-
ledge of them ; and the same is even now the case
with ri^d Boodhists. Have not even the learned

170

TIBET, TARTARY

of Europe, with the advantage of a press, and a
reading public eager for knowledge, been for
many centuries acquainted with the existence of
Boodhists with peculiar doctrines, without, until
very recently, obtaining any accurate knowledge
of these sacred books? That the doctrines of
Sakhya Muni spread widely over the western
world, as well as over the east, is sufficiently
known and established. Pythagoras brought the
doctrine of transmigration into Greece, at a period
so close to that of the decease of Sakhya Muni,
as to make it probable that he received it even
from himself; but we have no direct evidence
that the philosopher went further east than Baby-
lon. The fact, however, that he derived his
doctrines from an Indian source is very generally
admitted ; and it has other points of resemblance
with Boodhism, besides the belief in metempsy-
chosis, or transmigration of souls. The discipline
he established, and the life of silence and medita-
tion he enjoined, with the degrees of initiation
introduced, which was a kind of successive ordi-
nation, correspond exactly with the precepts of
the Pitakattayan, and the practices reported in'
the Attha-katha,

The Pythagorean institutions also are described
as very monastic in their character, rci^mbling

AND MONGOLIA.

171

thus closely, in that respect also, the viharas of the
Boodhists of India. The doctrines of Pythagoras
were widely spread over Greece, over Italy, and
Asia Minor for centuries after his decease, and
under the name of Mythraic, the faith of Boodh
had also a wide extension. The general exi)ecta-
tion of the birth of a great prophet. Redeemer, or
Saviour, which is alluded to even by Tacitus, as *
prevailing at the period when flie founder of the
Christian religion appeared, was, there can be no
doubt, of Boodhistic origin,* and not at all confined
to Jews, or based only on the prophecies of their
Scripture. Although, therefore, the classic litera-
ture of that age affords no evidence of the precise
character of this Boodhism, nor of the basis of
Scripture or tradition on which it rested, still the
two facts, viz., first, the existence of these books
in India at the period ; and secondly, the wide
spread in the west of the doctrines and belief which
rested upon them, may be considered as both well
established, and as not likely to be denied.

Under the supposition of the pre-existence of
Boodhism, such as these sacred books describe,

• ^ Tlio advent of another Boodh a thousand years after G-otama

or Sakhya Muni, is distinctly prophesied in the Pitakattnyan and
Attha-katha. G-otnma declares himself to be the twenty-fiftli
Boodh, and says, “ Bagawa Motteyo is yet to come.” The name
Mettoyo bears an extraordinary resemblance to Messiah.

I 2

172

TIBET, TAKTARY

and its professors still jireach, the rapid spread of
Christianity in the first and second centuries of
our era, is not surprising. 'L'o a mind already
impressed with Boodhistic belief and Boodhistic
doctrines, the birth of a Saviour and llcdcemer
for the Western world, recognised as a new Boodh
by wise men of the cast, that is, by Magi, Srama-
mis, or Lamas, who had obtained the Arhat
sanctification, was an event cxpc'cted, and there-
fore readily accepted, when declared and an-
nounced. It was no abjuration of an old faith
that the teachers of Christianity asked of the
Boodhists, but a mere qualification of an existing
belief by the incorxioration into it of the Movsaic
accomit of the creation, and of original sin, and
the fall of man. The Boodhists of ihcj west,
accepting Christianity on its first ainiouncement,
at once introduced the rites and observances
which for centuries had already existed in India.
From that country Christianity derived its mona-
stic institutions, its forms of ritual, and of cjiurch
service, its councils or convocations to settle
schisms on points of faith, its worship of relics,
and working of miracles through them, and much
of the discipline, and of the dress of the clergy,
even to the shaven heads of the monks and friars.
It would require an entire volume to compare in

AND MONGOLIA.

173

detail the several points of similarity, and to trace
the divergence from the more ancient doctrine
and practice, in the creed and forms of ritual ulti-
mately adopted by the churches of the west. It
is enough for our present purpose to establish the
superior antiquity of the one, found to exhibit so
many points of close correspondence.

But independently of the similarity of doctrine*
of ritual, and of institutions, we find that Bood-
hism has run in the east a very analogous course
with Romanism in the west. Having its classes
of specially initiated and ordained teachers, it
spread widely amongst the population, before it
was adopted, and made a state religion by the
reigning sovereigns. It was torn to pieces by
heresies and schisms on trivial observances and
doctrinal points, till one sect, having enlisted the
power of the state on its side, persecuted and ex-
pelled its opponents, to the weakening and ulti-
mate ruin of the church and its authority. The
subserviency of the temporal to the spiritual power
was universally preached by this separate initiated
class ; and, in j)i^esumptous reliance on their in-
* fluence over the populace, priests in the east, as in
the west, have liumbled and destroyed the kingly
power, and occasionally, when circumstances fa-
voured the pretension, have established a priestly

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174

TIBET, TARTARY

government, such as we see in Tibet, in entire
supercession of the ordinary temporal authority,
and have souglit to reserve the administration of
all affairs for the special class of initiated or or-
dained. But the consequence in the east has been
the same as in the west. The priestly govern-
ments have been unable to maintain themselves
without foreign support : priestly domination has
been found quite incompatible with energetic mili-
tary action, which always has been, and always
.must be, the source of real i>olitical power. The
great Lamas of Tibet arc the protected minions of
China, just as the Pope of Rome is de2)endcnt to
day on France, and was recently on Austria, not-
withstanding the reverence in which the Papal
name and spiritual authority is still held by vast
populations.

But the religion of Tibet and of China, differ-
ing widely in that resjpect tVom that of i^apistical
Home, is by principle tolerant. Believing that
the human mind can, by meditation and abstrac-
tion, arrive at the knowledge of divine truth, it
concedes freedom of thought and conscience to
all. Boodhists will contend Avith Boodhists for
the superiority of their Kotooktoo, and will per-
secute and excommunicate those who deny his
pretensions. Of this M. Hue Avitnessed a striking

AND MONGOLIA.

175

instance in the contentions of the Kotooktoos of
Cham do and of Jaya, as he passed through Kham,
the easternmost province of Tibet. But, towards
strangers, and the preachers of new doctrines,
Boodhists have always displayed not only tole-
rance, but every desire to hear, to learn, and to
understand. Hence the great success that preach-
ers‘ of Christianity have always experienced in
their missions to Boodhist con fries and com-
munities. Conformity of doctrine and of precepts
in several main essentials leads a Boodhist to
regard a missionary only as a reformer, nay, even
as aiming to reclaim men to the pure or more
ancient worship of the best days of his own reli-
gion. It is only by alarming the civil authorities,
and bringing the government to fear tlie separate
association of large numbers . for j)urposes, and
under discii^lined leaders, which may be turned to
political mischief, that the powers of the state,

’ and of its officers and institutions, arc brought
into action to suppress and put an end to conver-
sions. They, whose hearts are set on the mille •
nium of a general adoption of the Christian faith^
would do well to study the causes which led to
the violent persecutions instituted against Chris-
^ tian converts and missionaries, in China, in
Japan, and more recently in Cambodia. Let

176

TIBET, TAKTARY

them use their advantage to engraft the belief of
the divine mission of Christ on the prepared mind
of the Boodhist population, without seeking the
separate organization of their converts into com-
munities under a priest^s ambitious leading. Let
them confine themselves to points of faith, of doc-
trine, and of morals, without aiming to en:5?rce
ritual observances and new modes of life. Thus
may they hope to plant the seed, that, sooner or
later, will produce a rich harvest of true religious
belief, and of \irtuous conduct, and sound mo-
rality, even though they fail to enforce the uni-
versal conformity, which, under the existing
diversity of mind, and of motive, and of intel-
lectual power, can scarcely be looked upon as a
condition intended by Providence for mankind.

The Boodhist xiractical creed is thus briefly
stated by Csoma Korosi : —

1st. To take refuge only with Boodh.

2nd. To form in the mind the resolution to aim
at the highest degree of perfection, and so to be
united with the Supreme Intelligence.

3rd. To humble oneself before Boodh, and to
adore him.

4th. To majee offering of things pleasing to the
six senses.

6th. To glorify Boodh by music, and by hymns,

AM3 MONGOl^lA.

177

and by praise of his person, doctrine, and love of
mankind, of his perfections, or attributes, and of
his acts for the bencifit of animated beings.

(3th. To confess one’s sins with a contrite heart,
to ask forgiv(mess of them, and to repent truly,
with a resolution not to commit such afterwards.

7th. To rejoice in the moral merit and perfec-
tions of animated beings, and to wish that they
may obtain beatitude.

8th. To t)ray and exhort existing holy men to
turn the wlu^cl of religion, that the world may
long benefit by tlieir teaching.

Persuade the Iloodhist that Christ fulfils his
idea of a perfect Jloodh, and let the name of Our
Saviour be substituted for Boodh, in the above
creed, and the Boodhist creed will approximate
closely to that of a perfect Christian.

Tson-Kha-pa, the saint-reformer of the four-
teenth and fifteenth centuries of our era, accord-
ing to the same authority, thus defines the duty
of Boodhists, classing mankind in three degrees
according to their intellectual capacity.

of the lowest order of mind must believe
that there is a God, and that there is a future
life, in which they will receive the reward or
punishment of their actions and conduct in this
life.

178 TIBET, TARTARY AND MONGOLIA.

Men of the middle degree of intellectu.*! capa-
city must add to the above, the knowledge that
all things in this world ai*e perishable ; that im-
perfection is a pain and degradation, and that de-
liverance from existence is a deliverance from
pain, and consequently, a final beatitude.

Men of the third, or highest order, must believe
in further addition : that nothing exists, or will
continue always, or cease absolutely, except
through dependence on a casual connection or
concatenation. So will they arrive at the true
knowledge of God.

This comes very near to Christianity, wanting
only the name of Christ as the source of the doc-
trine, and the Mosaic faith for its antecedent. It
is these and the better moral precepts of our Gos-
pel, and its doctrine of the separate immortal exist-
ence of soul with its hopes in futurity and pro-
mises of salvation, that the missionary must seek
to add to the foundation already laid by Boodhism.

LEWIS AX'D SON, PRINTERS, 21 , FINCH LANE, CORNHILL.